“I do, and it tells me it’s dangerous for you to keep looking for stories about your parents. You understand?”
I tried to swallow, but the lump in my throat got stuck.
Back at the dining hall, I spotted Jayden and motioned for him to follow me out back. “You were right about Hawthorne,” I said as he dumped the plates in a bin. “He saved Whittier because he knew what might happen.”
I told him everything Aunt Winnie said, and Jayden listened so hard he forgot to set the dishes washing. “What did she mean about knowledge changing things?” he asked. “Is there a connection with our dig site? And why did she say it was dangerous to learn about your parents?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ve been getting warning notes about them.”
Jayden’s eyes narrowed. “Do you still have them?”
The last note was in my pocket, and Jayden studied it for a long time before handing it back to me. “Your parents must be involved,” he concluded.
We talked the whole way to our next class about the possibilities. Even though Aunt Winnie said it was dangerous, we were determined to learn more.
“I’m glad we’re friends again,” I told him.
“We’ve always been friends.”
“Even though you didn’t talk the whole last year?”
He thrust out his chin, and I worried I’d sent him back inside himself, but he kept on talking. “When I was a kid I believed everything Grandma Charlotte said—how I could be anything I wanted to be. But I guess at some point I lost hope.”
“Is that when you started reading all the time?”
“Yeah. When I read, I escaped and got back some of those dreams.” He grew silent for a few paces before he spoke again. “Camp has taught me there are more things in this world than I ever imagined.”
I was glad for Jayden. He had a gift, but where did that leave me?
We split up at the campfire circle. His telekinesis class was meeting there. I had swimming, but I was so caught up in my talk with Jayden, I forgot to dread it.
When I arrived, the others had just decided to quit. There were only three of us left, and the girl from the Whits told me she had a feeling her gift would appear today, anyway. I wished I had a feeling like that, but I only had Aunt Winnie’s voice playing in my head: “You run after things too much.”
Since I didn’t have to swim, I watched Jayden’s class for a while. They were moving the logs around the campfire circle. Karen barely made the logs wobble, but Jayden actually lifted them off the ground.
Skeeter gave them a break, and Karen and Jayden came over to me. “Aren’t you swimming today?” he asked.
“No, I thought I’d visit Ivan.” I was embarrassed to admit I had nothing to do.
Jayden levitated his backpack toward us. “I have a book for him.”
Skeeter blew the whistle for class to start again, and I headed back up the path to Twain House. At least I could talk with my one remaining friend who hadn’t found his gift.
I found Ivan in Buckeye’s room. Vangie, the Fellow’s CIT, was bringing him his meal and said I could visit for a few minutes. She passed the tray to him, and he sighed.
“You okay?” I asked, pulling a chair next to his bed.
“Not really.” He started itching a patch of red welts on his arm, and Vangie picked up a pink bottle and advanced on him. “No more calamine lotion—I’ll stop,” he yelped.
“Is it that bad?” I tried to sound sympathetic, but Ivan’s grimaces made me laugh.
“It’s not that. I ran a fever last night and accidentally discovered my gift.” His eyes slid sideways to a pile of sodden sheets in the corner. Charred patches showed where fire had burned spots. “I could’ve had the gift of talking with horses, but no—I got fire,” he said.
“Fire?”
“I can summon it like this.” He held up a finger with a flame on the tip.
“Not while you’re sick,” Vangie said. “Time for your guest to leave so you can rest.”
I propped the book beside his pillow. “Jayden thought you’d like to read Hawthorne’s Wonder Book. It’ll help pass the time.”
Other friends must have visited already, because Tom Sawyer and The Song of Hiawatha lay on his bedside table.
“Thanks,” Ivan said. “These stories might give me ideas for what I can do with fire.”
I left him gloomily picking at his food and muttering, “It could have been horses.”
The evening program was a band performance at the Alcott House. It was the smallest of the dorms, a yellowish green house sitting at the foot of a steep hill. The musicians would perform in the barn, and the Thornes had the job of setting up chairs. Cecily directed operations in between bursts of information about Alcott House.
“This is a copy of the house where Louisa May Alcott lived as a young teen,” she said, handing me two folding chairs. “She wrote Little Women about her life here.”
Lindsey clutched my arm. “That’s one of my favorite books!”
“Mine, too,” Cecily said. “Louisa used to put on plays for her family and neighbors in this barn.”
Lindsey forgot to unfold her chairs and stood staring at the four walls. “Jo was here,” she murmured.
I took the chairs from her and set them on the end of the row as Cecily chattered on. “Later, Hawthorne bought this house from the Alcotts, and they moved to a house next door.”
“They were neighbors?” Lindsey squeaked.
I finished the row while she spouted questions about the main house—were there stairs for playing pilgrims? Was there a garret? I suspected she wouldn’t be paying much attention to the concert.
The band members arrived, and most of them were telekinetics like Jayden, though there were a few campers who studied instruments year round. They stood out from the others because they rustled their sheet music in a determined way, while the telekinetics joked and nudged each other. Some telekinetics didn’t even have sheet music.
Karen slouched in and stationed herself beside Joanne, whose oboe rose in the air and began trilling on its own. Joanne grabbed it and shot her a poisonous look. Karen pretended to busy herself polishing her bugle.
While we waited for the concert to begin, Lindsey told us about her first day of class. “He puts us in pairs, and we send messages to each other. Today we shared our favorite color and ice cream. My partner and I didn’t get it at first, but then we figured out we were blocking each other. After that we made great progress. We even learned how to share information with a large group.”
“How do you do it?”
“If one person provides information, I can send it to everyone else.”
“Sounds boring,” Ellen said. “Our class is much better. Eugene has us hiking around camp looking for buried stuff. We find mostly trash, like soda bottles, but today I found this.” She pulled out a grimy key chain like the ones we made with Cecily.
“One of the empaths might know who it belonged to,” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t. Ellen loved being the center of attention, and this key chain was her ticket to going around and showing off what she found.
Freddy and some of the guys arrived and took seats near us.
“Hey Garrett,” Ellen said. “I wondered if you could tell me who dropped this.”
He smiled shyly and took the key chain, weighing it in his palm. He stiffened. “Weird.”
“What’s weird?” she asked.
“This key chain is three hundred years old.”
“Impossible—plastic wasn’t even invented then.”
He handed it back as though it burned him. “It’s true though. It’s from Colonial times.”
The band started up a thundering version of The Star Spangled Banner, and everyone stood to sing. As I sang, I looked at Garrett. Was he making a joke? He caught my eye and nodded. What was he trying to say?
Chapter Eighteen
I didn’t sleep well that night. Every time I woke up, my mind returned to the key chain and Aun
t Winnie and my parents. Finally I got up as the windows turned a lighter gray and made my way to the dining hall.
I sat on the front porch with my arms clasped around my knees to keep out the morning chill and watched the sun break over the pine trees. I hadn’t been there long when the door of Twain House opened and closed with a sigh, and a shadowy form walked toward me. It was Buckeye in his safari hat and blue bandana.
“Lovely morning,” he said, sitting beside me.
I didn’t say anything.
“I don’t sleep well, myself,” he explained. “Too many regrets.”
“It’s not that for me. I hoped being here would help me learn about my parents.”
The sun had risen higher and cast a pinkish glow around us. Buckeye turned to me, and for once his shiny smile was gone. “Stella, there are some things we can never find out, no matter how hard we try. Perhaps you need to accept this.”
I put my head on my knees and let the tears trickle down my cheeks. Buckeye was right, but I didn’t want to let go. I felt a pat on my shoulder and heard the door to the dining hall swing as Buckeye headed inside.
Though Aunt Winnie didn’t want me asking about my parents, I needed a visit this morning. Just talking with someone who knew them gave me a connection—like I was holding onto a rope with my parents at the other end. Besides, I had plenty of other things to ask her.
Aunt Winnie was in her cabin, wheeling back and forth as she poured water in the pots of flowers that filled every table top and window sill.
She shook her head when I told her about Ellen’s key chain and what Garrett said. “Trouble never seems to leave Camp Hawthorne,” she muttered.
“What do you mean?”
She peered into my face. “You realize your gift yet? Hmm. I wonder.” She emptied the pitcher and began drying it. “You have a gift for attracting question marks.”
I laughed. “Is that a real gift?”
“No, it’s a curse,” said Aunt Winnie. “Reminds me of that fella, Thomas Edison.”
She parked her wheelchair next to the couch, and I sat by her. “Stella, you know a lot of people with ESP invent things. It sort of runs in their blood.”
I thought of the robot competition. “I’ve seen some of it.”
“When Mark Twain helped start the camp, he brought his friend Thomas Edison, and they built something here. It was lost, but some people think it turned up again around the time your parents came. Odd things happened in those days, and strange stuff appeared at the dig site.” Aunt Winnie gazed at me through her glasses. “Now do you understand how Garrett might be telling the truth?”
“Not exactly.” Aunt Winnie’s words made my hands prickle.
“You will,” she said. “Better get going before they start searching for you.” Aunt Winnie seemed to sag in her chair. I squeezed her hand, but she didn’t look up. I hoped I hadn’t made more trouble by coming here.
Breakfast was ending and everyone was rushing out of the dining hall when I returned. I wanted to tell Jayden what I’d learned from Aunt Winnie, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I hoped he’d know what she meant about Garrett. How could he be telling the truth about the key chain? I wanted to ponder this idea more, but Vangie marched up and put a tray in my hands. “Could you take this to Ivan?” It was more of a command than a request.
I walked in to find Ivan clutching his arms in agony. “Calamine lotion,” he said, through gritted teeth. His arms were covered in small burn marks.
“You haven’t been using fire on those chicken pox?” I asked.
“Calamine lotion,” he gasped. “In the closet.”
I opened the door and saw a dozen of Buckeye’s khaki shirts hanging on the rod.
“Shelf in back,” Ivan said.
Pushing aside the shirts, I uncovered a shelf filled with boxes and bottles. The pink bottle stood next to a pair of shoes. I reached around them, but something about their color and shape caught my eye. They were brown with square toes. I jumped back and hit my head on the closet rod, and for a moment everything became fuzzy.
My voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Ivan, what are these shoes doing here?”
“Calamine,” he repeated, as if it was his dying word.
My vision returned to normal, and I rushed the lotion to him. Ivan began slapping it over both arms, grunting with relief. “Sorry, Stella. I tried an experiment that didn’t work. Don’t tell Vangie, okay?”
“Of course I won’t, but those brown shoes in the closet—do they belong to you?”
“No, my stuff’s in this bag. She only keeps the extra medicine there.”
I didn’t want to burden Ivan with my worries, but was Buckeye one of the brown people? Could he be the one sending the warning notes?
I needed to find Mr. Parker, but he wasn’t in his office. I ran out of Twain House, right into a crowd of people. Three camp buses sat in the long driveway, and Buckeye was waving his clipboard and herding campers into them.
I shrank back and bumped into Cecily.
“We’re supposed to wait in the dining hall,” she told me. “Hawthorne House is going last.”
“Have you seen Mr. Parker?” I asked.
“He already left on the first bus.”
I tried to quiet my swirling thoughts as we walked across the driveway. I would talk with Mr. Parker when we arrived at the field trip.
“How’s Ivan?” Cecily asked.
“Gloomy as ever. But he’s fixed up with calamine lotion for a while.”
“He’ll probably flip his lid over missing this field trip,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
Cecily shrugged. “Buckeye didn’t say, but we usually go to the seashore. You should’ve seen what Eugene’s group dug up last year—six pirate doubloons and an old wine bottle from the Titanic.”
We found the others from Hawthorne House already seated around tables. Jayden was reading a book, and I slipped into the chair next to him. “I talked with Aunt Winnie again,” I whispered.
His eyes brightened. “Any clues to our mystery?”
“I’m not sure. She told me Thomas Edison came here and made something with Twain that might explain the odd stuff at the dig site, and how Garrett spoke the truth about the key chain.”
He flipped to a page with a bookmark. “I’m reading ‘P’s Correspondence’ again to see if I can find a clue.”
The other kids were sitting at tables playing cards, and Eugene called across the room to Ellen. “Garrett says he’s right about that key chain you showed him, and he wants to prove it to you.”
She bounced up. “I wouldn’t have bothered about this silly old thing, but since you really want to show us.”
We gathered around as she brought out the key chain, which she wore on a cord around her neck. I felt for my own key chain on its matching cord. It made me mad that Ellen had to mimic even this special link with my parents.
Garrett took the key chain and held it in his open palm. It seemed to tremble there, and I rubbed my eyes. They were acting up. I looked again and everything came back in focus.
“This key chain belonged to a girl named Hepzibah,” he said. I startled at the name and glanced at Jayden, who nodded and tapped the book in his hand.
“She was afraid,” Garrett continued. “Someone accused her of being a witch, and other people were dying. It was Salem, 1693.”
Ellen made a movement to take back the key chain, but Garrett held it higher and his words came faster. “She got it from a girl named Franny, who made it at Camp Hawthorne.”
My breath caught in my throat. This was the link between my parents and the mystery!
“Franny visited Salem and went away, and Hepzibah buried the key chain in her garden. No one ever found it until Ellen dug it up,” Garrett said.
“What are you lot up to?”
We jumped guiltily. Buckeye stood in the doorway with his clipboard. “We’ve filled the buses, and I’ll be sending one back for you,” he said. “M
ake sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes.” He winked and left us.
I’d barely heard his words.
Ellen snatched the key chain and dangled it from her hand. “I’ve found something huge.”
“It could be evidence of time travel,” Eugene said. “But that’s not an ESP gift I’ve ever heard of.”
“It must be,” said Ellen. “This Franny is the key to the whole thing.”
I couldn’t stand it. “Franny was my mother,” I said.
Ellen spun to look at me. “It might be a different Franny.”
I pulled out my key chain—a perfect match. “She made this when she came here.”
“We could ask her then,” she said, frowning.
“She died when I was a baby.” I choked on the last words and the entire room grew silent. Lindsey wrapped an arm around me and led me from the circle.
“I didn’t know,” Ellen said. “No one ever told me.”
Tears rolled down my face, and I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t want everyone to see me crying, so I headed for the door. Lindsey followed right behind me.
Chapter Nineteen
I ran down the trail to the lake. Roots tripped my feet and Lindsey called for me to wait, but I couldn’t stop. Stumbling past the shore and up into the hills toward Aunt Winnie’s cabin, I tried to outrun my misery and all my questions about my parents.
Lindsey finally caught up with me, and a quiet thought invaded my mind.
Why are we going here?
“Aunt Winnie might have the answers,” I said aloud.
We jogged the rest of the way in silence, but when we reached the cabin I groaned. The chicken house lay splintered in the yard, and the cabin door was smashed. Only a piece of it swung crazily on one hinge.
“Aunt Winnie,” I yelled, darting inside. The bed was pulled apart—quilts lying on the floor and the mattress ripped. Every vase and pot was shattered and the flowers crushed. “Where’s Aunt Winnie?” I cried.
Lindsey stood completely still, a strange look on her face. “Something’s wrong with the others. We’ve got to go back.”
The Pandora Device Page 9
