“But, we have to find Aunt Winnie first.”
“She’s not here, Stella. The others need us more.”
I couldn’t imagine anything more urgent than Aunt Winnie gone and her cabin torn apart. Who would do that? Aunt Winnie was too frail. She couldn’t survive an attack like this. I was caught in a mudslide of emotions, and all I could do was run back to where I started.
We ran so fast that my side ached and my vision was blurring. We entered the dining hall, and I closed my eyes to steady myself. I heard Eugene’s voice bellowing above the din of people talking. “Everyone calm down and take a seat!”
Lindsey pulled me to a table. I opened my eyes, and Eugene came into clear view.
“This note came through the window,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s reliable or some sort of prank.” He handed it to Garret. “Can you tell who wrote it?”
Garrett touched the paper. “Buckeye,” he said.
Everyone started talking again, but Cecily’s voice cut through the clamor. “Read it again, Eugene. Slowly this time.”
Eugene took the note and read:
This is a ransom note. If you want to see the other campers and staff unharmed, send Stella Harski to the lab. She may bring two people with her. You will find three pairs of shoes in the room with Ivan to transport you. Come at once.
Cecily whispered to Eugene, and his jaw clenched. She held up a hand. “Y’all know we take precautions at Camp Hawthorne—no cell phones or electronic devices. That’s because there are dangerous people who would take advantage of our gifts for their own ends.” She looked at Eugene, and he nodded for her to continue. “There’ve been indicators that something big is about to happen. Some of our best practitioners have disappeared, and no one knows who is behind it. We suspect this kidnapping is part of it.”
“But why Stella?” Jayden asked.
I was wondering the same thing. Was it because I was the only one without a gift? But then, why allow me to bring the others? I shrank into my chair, still out of breath from running.
Eugene growled, “We can’t follow the directions. It’s too dangerous.”
“Isn’t there someone we could ask for help?” Karen asked. “Maybe Aunt Winnie…”
“She’s gone,” Lindsey said. “And her cabin’s torn apart.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment as the gravity of the situation sank in.
“How about our parents?” Coop said.
Eugene crumpled the ransom note. “Where would we tell them to come?”
“There must be some authority we can contact,” Ellen said.
Everyone stared at each other, their faces blank. “Only Mr. Parker would have known that,” said Eugene.
How could we stand up to someone who kidnapped four busloads of kids? I thought about Camp Hawthorne and the wonderful world I’d discovered here. I’d do anything to protect it. My vision wobbled, and something clicked in my brain. “I need to go,” I said.
Ellen squinted at me.
“I’ll go,” said Jayden.
“Me, too,” said Lindsey.
“And me,” said Ellen.
I forgot for a moment how miserable everything was. It felt good to know I had friends who would stick by me, no matter what.
Freddy stepped forward. “I don’t mean to be pushy, but I should go, too. If I can read hidden writing, it might help us.”
“Wait,” Karen said. “What if it’s a trap?”
“They have everyone else,” I said. “Three more people won’t make a difference. If we don’t come back, the rest of you will have to rescue us.”
I looked at Jayden and Ellen. “Thanks for volunteering to come with me, but I’ll need the gifts Lindsey and Freddy have.”
I thought they might argue, but Jayden nodded slowly. “I’ll watch the shoe transport.”
Eugene, Cecily and Ellen came as well. We walked across the driveway, and Jayden stayed at my side. “They might want you because of the connection with your parents,” he said. “Be careful.”
Ellen yanked open the door to Ivan’s room. He was reading a book in bed while balancing a tray of cookies on his knee. He jumped, and the cookies flew in the air, landing in a shower of crumbs on his bedspread.
“What’s going on?” he yelped.
“We’re here for shoes,” Ellen said.
I opened the cupboard and pushed back Buckeye’s shirts. At the end of the row hung a single white lab coat with a picture I.D.
“It’s Buckeye,” I said. “But the name on the tag says Bradford Jaeger.”
“You didn’t think his real name was Buckeye, did you?” Ellen asked.
“No.” It was hard to sort it all out. “But everything about him has been a lie.”
“We know that,” Ellen snapped. “That’s why we’re searching for shoes.”
I turned back to the cupboard and scanned the shelf of medicine bottles. The first pair of brown shoes was still there, and near the bottom were two more pairs.
“We need to figure out how they work,” I said.
“No time,” said Freddy, jamming his feet into the largest pair. A low buzzing sounded, and he disappeared.
Lindsey clutched my shoulder. “What just happened?”
“See if you can reach his mind,” I said.
She let her arms go loose and closed her eyes. “He’s surprised, but no harm.”
I held my breath and slipped on the second pair. They were a little big, but the instant my feet settled in the shoes, the air hummed and a sharp tug pulled under my rib cage.
Ivan’s room zipped away, and I found myself standing with Freddy in a completely white office—white chairs, white carpet and a white table—with a communicating window in one wall. On the table lay a collection of newspapers. Freddy leaned over them scanning for information.
Lindsey arrived next to me, still bent in position to put on her shoes. “Where are we?”
“It must be the kidnapper’s lab,” I began, but a rattling at the window stopped me.
A tall woman with hair like a beehive slid the glass aside. “Stella Harski? You may come through.”
A section of wall opened, and she led us to a door at the end of the passage, where she punched numbers on a keypad. We entered, and the door clanged shut.
This room was also white, but the light was even brighter. I squinted at a dozen tables ringing the room, each with its own pulsing box of light above it. In the center stood a giant machine made of reflective metal. The only blotch of color in the room was our hazy reflection—three kids in jeans and T-shirts.
A man, wearing a white lab coat and safety glasses, stepped from behind the contraption. He was barely taller than me, and if his hair hadn’t been gray, I might have mistaken him for a kid. He put down a wrench and paused to study us. Lindsey flinched, and then I felt it, too—a gentle probing in my mind.
No, I thought with all the intensity I could muster.
“You did well to follow my instructions.” His voice was mild, almost welcoming. “My name is Dr. Card, and I’m the president of a humanitarian organization called the Human Project.”
“That kidnaps people,” I blurted.
“For the good of humanity.” He smiled—his teeth perfectly straight and bright white. “Those shoes, for example. We developed them in our lab. They can transport people anywhere in the world. Instantly. So you see, we are improving transportation for everyone.”
“Then why haven’t we heard of them?”
“A matter of economics, my dear. The shoes give a financial advantage that I will use to further the welfare of humanity, especially for people like us. Do you understand?”
I scowled. I had to concentrate to keep his soothing words from making me relax.
He walked over to a table crowded with shiny metal instruments. “You might be interested to know that many alumni of Camp Hawthorne work in my labs, once they understand the benefit to themselves.”
I didn’t like the way he said benefit. Was it th
e same kind of benefit he used to get us here—threats of harming our friends?
“Our organization spans the world now,” he continued. “We have laboratories in almost every civilized nation, and some uncivilized ones as well. Our scientists work day and night to develop the tools we need to change the world.”
“I saw the newspapers in the waiting room,” Freddy said.
“Yes. Those skirmishes in Africa were us. We ended them, too.”
“Why start things if you’re only going to end them?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed. “That is not the point of our discussion. I brought you here because our lab needs a machine that was lost years ago. Our experts learned it is hidden at Hawthorne House, and Miss Harski will find it. You will know it by this marker.”
He held up a card with the figure of a red triangle inside a black square. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it before.
“For now your friends believe they are on a harmless field trip with their leader Buckeye. But if you don’t bring me the machine this evening, things will be very different.”
Freddy was staring at the lab table piled with notes.
I felt Lindsey tremble slightly beside me. “We should get back to camp,” I said as she swayed against me. Her body went limp, and I caught her before she hit the ground. “Now,” I added, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
Dr. Card turned back to his contraption. “Just concentrate on where you want to go, and the shoes will take you there. You will get further instructions when the time comes.”
“Camp Hawthorne,” I said, the words feeling stiff in my mouth. The shoes buzzed and glowed, and a moment later we were back in Ivan’s room.
Chapter Twenty
Ivan shrieked, and a spurt of fire shot from his fingers.
Freddy helped Lindsey sit in a chair, and her eyes fluttered open. “What happened?”
“You began to shake when you were staring at Dr. Card,” I said.
She rubbed her eyes. “I thought I could get inside his head and find out more. He let me in, but it was like standing on a cliff and looking down at the whole world. Vast power. He wanted us to know that.”
Freddy shook his head. “I had the same impression from the newspapers in the waiting room. I got a clue, though. The lab papers mentioned something called the Pandora Device.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Didn’t say.”
Jayden tapped The Wonder Book by Ivan’s bed. “Hawthorne wrote a bunch of stories for kids, and there’s one called Pandora’s Box—about a girl who was supposed to guard a secret trunk. She wanted to know what was inside so badly that she opened it, and all the troubles of the world came out.”
I groaned. That sounded like a box Dr. Card would like. “His lab predicted I’d find the device, and he wants it.”
“So what do we do?” Ellen cut in. “Let this monster control us?”
I realized how nice it was to have her on my side for once. Her anger made me feel stronger somehow.
“No,” I said. “We find the machine first. Then we control what happens.”
Eugene exchanged a triumphant glance with Cecily. “We might know where it is.”
“Where?” several voices asked, but Cecily just shook her head. “We have to show you.”
Ivan insisted on coming with us, and we picked up the rest of the Thornes at the dining hall. Cecily kept urging us to walk faster. “Y’all are slow as Christmas coming!” she said.
At the house, she took us to the dining room and opened a narrow arched door to the left of the fireplace. “Only the counselors and CITs know about this,” she said. “But there’s a secret passage in this closet.” She pulled on a handle in the back wall, and a panel swung open to reveal a steep wooden staircase. The walls around the steps were brick, but the mortar looked gray and crumbly. “We suspect the device is hidden here.”
Everyone surged forward.
“Wait,” I said. “We need to do this in a logical way. Eugene and Ellen, you should go over the stairway, since you can find buried things. Maybe it will work with walls and stairs.”
Ellen smiled—a nice smile. “Thanks, Stella,” she whispered as she slipped past me.
“What about everyone else?” Ivan asked. He’d insisted on coming.
The others looked at me. It was a strange feeling. “Perhaps Garrett should touch the doorknobs and see if he can get any clues. The rest of us will search the old-fashioned way.”
“Karen and I can lift heavy furniture,” Jayden added. “Find us if you need us.”
The other campers fanned out around the house, but I stood in the dining room, trying to figure out a plan. The entire camp was kidnapped—and by someone who was probably insane. I shivered.
Lindsey lingered behind with me. “He’s not insane,” she said softly. “But he’ll do anything to get what he wants.”
“Stella,” called Jayden. “We’ve got something to show you.”
I followed Jayden’s voice up the stairs until I reached the attic. The walls were bare boards with plaster stuck between them. He stood in the middle of a dozen trunks and boxes where a window let in a wavery sunlight.
“It was Karen’s idea,” he said. “We told the boxes to move if they contained anything related to the Pandora Device, and this one jumped.”
Karen pulled out a dress and held it up to her shoulders. “Looks old, doesn’t it? I found something in the pocket.” She handed me a letter dated 1692. “Look at the signature.”
At the bottom in curly script was Hepzibah. I tried to read the rest, but the handwriting was too fancy.
“There’s something more in the box,” she said. She passed me a pocket-size notebook, the kind they sold in the camp store.
“This isn’t as old as the dress,” I said.
“And see the name on the first page—Dan Harski.”
My mind tingled with possibilities. Perhaps we’d found a diary, and I could really know my dad at last. I turned to the next page, but it was just row after row of numbers with names of places beside them.
Jayden looked over my shoulder. “It’s coming together,” he said, his voice rising. “The scrap of paper from the dig site, Aunt Winnie’s warning about your parents, and now this notebook—it adds up to some strange stuff.”
“We need to figure out the letter,” I said. “I wonder if Freddy could read it.”
“I’ll get him,” he offered.
After he left, I flipped through the notebook, just more numbers and places—Salem, Alexandria, Frankfurt. I held it out to Karen. “Can you make anything of it?”
We were still puzzling over the pages when the boys sprinted up the stairs. “What can I read for you?” Freddy asked.
I handed him the letter, and he scrunched his face as he studied it. “Pretty thick cursive.” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “It’s addressed to Franny.” He read slowly:
Dear Mistress Franny,
I endeavor to keep my Gift secret, but Neighbor Brown spied the candlelight when you visited last. She is asking questions, and I fear I will be accused a Witch. I will bury the gift you gave me. If this Misfortune comes to your knowledge, I trust you will do all you can to help me.
Your Friend,
Hepzibah
My breath caught at the closing line—your friend. “If Franny visited Hepzibah—”
Jayden whistled. “That would be time travel.”
“And that’s why Dr. Card wants the Pandora Device,” I said. “We’re looking for a time machine.”
Karen folded the dress, her face puckered. “I can’t tell you much, but Mr. Parker was concerned about something like this. He asked me to keep an eye on Stella in case anything happened.” She put the dress in the trunk and closed it carefully. “We better keep this to ourselves until we know more.”
I looked at the others, and they nodded in agreement.
Lindsey’s voice called in my mind. Stella, they need you in the kitchen.
>
We hurried down the steps, and I thought how strange this day was becoming. I might not have a gift, but I was helping solve a huge problem. I was also beginning to understand why Aunt Winnie warned me to stop asking about my parents. My questions had put our whole camp in danger.
Eugene and Ellen joined us on the way to the kitchen, their hands covered in brick dust and a thundercloud forming on Eugene’s brow. “We didn’t find it,” he said. “But we found lots of stupid notes that CITs from the past left behind loose bricks.”
“Yeah—Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again,” Ellen said in a mocking voice.
“It’s probably a tradition,” Eugene said. “Now, I’ll have to come up with something intelligent to put there.”
We arrived in the kitchen where Cecily and Coop were hunched over a gray mouse, which startled at our appearance and scampered through a hole in the corner.
“We might have a clue,” she said, laughing. “It’s the mice—silliest creatures that ever lived—Coop got them talking.”
He ducked and blushed, but managed to speak up. “They said there’s something big hidden in the wall.”
“Which wall?”
“They didn’t say, but their family territory is downstairs.”
I stared at the bare kitchen walls and my vision blurred. I blinked, and a framed portrait seemed to appear on the white surface—the old colonel. “Remember the story of the curse and the hidden papers?” I asked.
I ran to the parlor, with everyone following, and tried to push an upholstered chair to the fireplace. Jayden took over, and it zipped into place without his even touching it.
“We need to look behind the portrait.” I climbed the chair to stand on its broad back and stretched out my arms to either side of the frame.
“Wait,” Karen said. “Let me check if it’s booby-trapped, first.” She reached with her palm toward the painting, drawing her hand back and forth. “It’s attached to the wall, and there’s a trip wire. Oops.” A puff of smoke billowed around the frame. “Open it now.”
I grabbed the portrait and pulled. The right side came forward, and I almost fell off the chair. More smoke leaked out, but I reached into the cavity behind the painting and found a thick package.
The Pandora Device Page 10
