“When they come, we’re ready,” said the boy her age, looking rather fierce. He placed his hands on his hips, and his friends followed suit. If they could take down a helicopter, Evie was quite confident they could stop the men when they came to town.
“Thank you,” said Catherine.
“Come on!” said Benedict.
Evie gave a smile to the boy, who nodded at her very seriously, and then she, Sebastian, Catherine, Benedict, and Peter darted through the square and back toward Peter’s house.
They flew across the clearing and up the stairs and inside, and Benedict disappeared into a back room. He returned in an instant with two pieces of paper. “Map.” He held up one. “Letter.” He held up the other. Then he passed them over to Catherine. She looked at them closely for a moment, then looked up at him.
“The seal isn’t broken,” she said, holding up the letter.
“I didn’t read it,” replied Benedict. “You should go, quickly.”
Catherine took a step toward him, and the two adults looked at each other for a moment. “You should read it, Benedict.”
Nothing happened. No movement, no reply from Benedict. Evie was feeling antsy. Benedict was right, they really should go. He was also right about them probably needing to do it quickly.
Finally, with a not-unhappy sigh—though Evie was starting to think that Benedict did have a range of emotion; he just didn’t show it the way most people did—he took the letter out of Catherine’s hand and broke the wax seal.
And read.
It was very quiet in the little house on stilts.
Benedict looked up at Catherine.
“So?” she asked.
“So he asks about the weather and wants to see my latest work,” replied Benedict, passing the letter over to Catherine.
“Can I see it?” asked Evie softly.
Catherine nodded and handed her the letter. Evie read it over.
It was as Benedict had said. More talk of weather. This time a storm out west. Just like he’d written to Catherine about the…north…wind. What was it that Alistair had said in his letter to the Andersons? “The four directions point to home.”
“The four directions,” she said quietly. It was like she was talking to herself more than to anyone else in the room.
“Four directions?” asked Benedict.
“Like he wrote to the Andersons. Catherine, could I have your letter?” she asked. Catherine nodded and, taking hers out of her pocket, passed it over. Evie examined it again closely. “Look.” Everyone gathered around, and she held the two letters from Alistair side by side. “He mentions north in his letter to Catherine, and west to Benedict. Surely that has something to do with finding him. With pointing to him.”
“In what way?” asked Catherine.
“I…don’t know.” Evie sighed hard. She felt so much closer, and yet it was so far.
“Is he giving coordinates?” asked Catherine.
“There aren’t any numbers,” replied Benedict.
Think, Evie, think. “Four directions. Like on a compass.” She said it aloud even though it didn’t solve anything.
“What if it isn’t about words? What if…,” said Sebastian slowly. “The puzzle box.”
“The puzzle box?” asked Evie.
“Yeah, Alistair’s puzzle box, the one that I found with all the info about the Filipendulous Five in it. He likes physical puzzles.”
“He does!” said Catherine.
“What if we’re meant to build a compass, from the letters?” As he said the words, Sebastian started to sound more confident.
“Build a compass?” asked Evie.
Sebastian laid Catherine’s letter on the table vertically. Then he placed Benedict’s on top but horizontally. The two pages created a backward L shape. “Imagine two other pieces of paper. You get a cross, with the end of each paper sticking out facing one direction. North is top, east faces the right, south is upside down facing the bottom, and west is facing left.”
“Interesting,” said Benedict, leaning down.
“What now?” asked Evie.
“Um…”
“Wait!” she said without letting anyone answer. “The darker letters!” Carefully, she picked up the pages, maintaining the L shape, and held them to the light. Where the two pages overlapped, the lighter letters faded away and the darker ones almost seemed to grow more pronounced. The letters A, N, D, A, D, A, T, and R from Catherine’s paper were clear. But even more amazing than that were the letters from Benedict’s paper. They were two Zs when read upright, but with the paper sideways as it was, the Zs turned into Ns and filled in the holes between Catherine’s letters. Creating…well, creating mostly gibberish.
“NANN DAD AT R,” Evie read slowly.
She looked up at the explorers to see if anything registered on their faces. They looked just as confused as she was.
“I don’t know what that means,” said Catherine, furrowing her brow.
“Me neither,” said Benedict.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sebastian.
“It doesn’t?” asked Evie.
“Don’t you see? Look at the way the letters are spaced. Some are close together, but there are wider spaces between some as well. That’s for other letters. It has to be. Once we have the other two letters sent to the Kid and Doris, once we have east and south, the words will make more sense. This is the clue. This is where he is!” Sebastian had that look on his face that Evie recognized well. It was the look of pure joy he got when a problem had been solved.
“You’re right. We don’t know what it means now, but we will. And at least we know how to solve the riddle!” Evie too was feeling a great sense of joy.
Catherine looked to Benedict. “Well, what do you think?”
Benedict was quiet for a moment, looking as calm and relaxed as ever. “I think Alistair has a flair for the theatrical, that he wastes time with riddles like these, that I still am not interested in ever being his friend again, and that I am going to go with you,” he said. He took his letter back, pocketed it, and disappeared once more into the back room.
“What? He is?” said Sebastian, surprised. Evie was too. She hadn’t expected the sentence to end that way.
“I don’t understand, but don’t question it,” replied Catherine. “This is good. We now have two parts of the map. And the key.” She smiled at Sebastian. Evie looked at him and smiled too. Everything was coming together as it was supposed to. Even though she still had no idea why Benedict, who really seemed to hate her grandfather, was doing any of this.
Benedict returned in that moment with a large duffel bag over one shoulder. “Peter, I need you to collect my things from the mountain and keep them safe,” he said.
“Of course, Mr. Barnes,” replied Peter in a tone that suggested he would not only keep them safe, he would keep them safer than anything had ever been kept safe in the history of safely kept things.
Evie decided there was nothing more for it, she had to ask. She quickly followed Benedict outside. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because he needs my help,” replied Benedict, and though it was a perfectly good answer to her question, it was not remotely a satisfying one for her. Especially as he hadn’t seemed to care that her grandfather had needed his help before now.
She didn’t bother to question him further. They didn’t have the time. Instead she walked quickly, keeping pace with him, as the others followed close behind. As they approached the town, Evie could see that something was up. The crowd was thick along the far side of the square. Then there was a scream, and there was some kind of scuffle.
“They’re here,” said Sebastian.
“We’ll take care of them,” said Peter, breaking off from their group to join the crowd.
“Come on, let’s go,” sai
d Catherine. She quickly led the way into the square and turned to head around the commotion. As they passed the crowd, Evie caught a glimpse of Mr. K and his melted face. He was holding his old-fashioned gun and aiming it toward the boy her age.
Evie stopped in her tracks. “Those men are going to hurt the townspeople,” she said. “We can’t let them do this!”
She turned back to the standoff just in time to see the boy do one of the most impressive high kicks she’d ever seen, sending Mr. K’s gun flying out of his hands.
“Oh, okay. Maybe they’re going to be fine,” said Evie, changing her mind.
“You!” called out a sort of familiar voice, and Evie could see Mr. M standing to Mr. K’s left, being blocked by Isa. He pushed her to the side and came charging right for them across the square.
“Run!” said Sebastian.
“I agree with that,” replied Evie.
And that’s exactly what they did. They ran.
Evie realized her well of adrenaline had filled up once more, because, man, she was totally able to do this running thing again. She glanced over her shoulder. The townspeople were marvelously getting in the way of the men. Engulfing them like a wave engulfing an explorer who had just rescued a little shark. Evie thought, This is our chance!
If they could get to the fake house, if they could get there first and slip through before the men noticed, that would give them time. The men didn’t know about the fake house. They would think that Evie and the others had just disappeared. Or something. Evie looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the men appearing around the corner, but clearly the crowd was doing a good job at detaining the men in black.
“The house!” said Catherine, pointing. They’d almost run right by it, but they turned and darted down the narrow alley.
Benedict immediately grabbed the side and pulled the house a few feet along its track.
“That’s bizarre,” said Sebastian.
“Let us help,” said Peter. Evie turned to see that Peter and Isa, as well as the soccer team, had managed to escape the crowd and come find them.
“We’ll close the door behind you,” said the fierce-looking boy.
“And,” said Isa, grinning to herself, “once we close it behind you, I will lean up against the porch to make it look really real.”
Evie laughed at that suggestion and thanked them. “You guys are amazing,” she said.
“Any friend of Benedict Barnes is a friend of ours,” Peter said.
The four of them quickly crossed over the track, and Benedict started to slide the house shut behind them. “Thank you, Peter. You’ve been an excellent apprentice,” Benedict said. Peter smiled so widely and brightly that Evie felt a little emotional to see it.
Then the wall of the fake house slid fully closed, and he was gone.
* Except that one September 26 in 1957.
Sebastian sat on the bus, squeezed between Evie and Benedict on a bench that was clearly meant to be sat on by only two people. Still, it was so much nicer being squished between people you liked than between people who wanted to cause you harm.
“We need to find Doris and the Kid,” Catherine was explaining. “But I don’t know where they are.”
Benedict nodded. “I think the Kid was in California, but I can’t say if he’s there now. I think our best bet is to find him first. He’ll know where Doris is.”
There was a charged silence at that.
“I haven’t seen her in a long time,” said Catherine softly.
“Yes,” replied Benedict.
Evie leaned over and whispered to Sebastian, “Ever feel like you’re missing a big part of the story?”
Sebastian nodded.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded again.
He didn’t know what to tell her. That was because he didn’t know what he was thinking himself. He knew that the right thing was to go home. Call his parents, tell them he was okay, and get himself back to the city and to his regular life. Which would likely involve years of being grounded—and deservedly so. The mention of California, though. And the need to find the Kid. And then Doris. It made him feel upset. It made him kind of sad.
He didn’t want to miss out.
There was no way his parents would give him permission to adventure like this, not with all the danger he was constantly facing and such. No way at all. He certainly wouldn’t allow such a thing if he himself had a kid. But he couldn’t not let them know he was okay. How they must miss him, how terrified they must be. But if he let them know, they’d make him come home.
Unless…
Unless he just didn’t go home.
Unless he called them and said he was fine but didn’t tell them where he was.
Well, now. Things were getting more inappropriate, it seemed. And maybe not in an appropriately inappropriate kind of way.
Sebastian didn’t want to think about it anymore, not while he was stuck on a small bus and couldn’t do anything about it now anyway.
“Uh, so do you think the Kid will be able to help us?” Sebastian asked the explorers. “I mean, he’s all right, right? The men don’t know where he is either, so he’s not in any kind of danger like Catherine was or you were?” He was joining the conversation and driving his angst from his mind as best he could.
Catherine smiled to herself in a contained kind of way. Benedict too smiled and said, “Well, that’s all a matter of context, but I am pretty sure it’s safe to say that the Kid is doing just fine.”
He was driving so fast that, even though he was following the winding road that twisted around and around the desert mountain, it almost seemed like he was unfurling the road after him in a ribbon of dry gray asphalt. They weren’t far behind, and although he was more than aware of his current situation, he couldn’t help but marvel at how beautifully this Lexus LFA handled the curves.
The Kid glanced in the rearview mirror. There was a sudden flash of bright light off a windshield in the distance behind. They had made up ground. He quickly adjusted his aviators, and then, with a grin, he slammed his foot hard on the gas. The Lexus burst forward with renewed energy, and the Kid easily wound around the next bend.
It was an adrenaline rush, that was for sure. It felt good, but it also felt dangerous. Which also felt good. The Kid grinned as he took the next bend, and the next.
And the next.
DANGER. ROAD CLOSED.
A bright orange sign, a wooden makeshift fence running across the pavement ahead. He slammed on the brakes and crashed right through the barricade onto the unpaved road. He spun the wheel furiously. The car fishtailed in the dirt, and dust rose up around him, swallowing the car. It wasn’t until the dust settled that he noticed that the vehicle had been so turned around that he was now heading right for the cliff face. There was no time to stop. There was no time to think. Writing all this right now has taken more time than the Kid had in that moment. He tore off his seat belt and flung himself out of the car as it charged on, flying over the side.
The ground was hard and his body was a rag doll as he rolled and rolled, slowing down but still maintaining momentum. He grappled with the dusty earth, reached his arms out, tried to grab at anything that might stop him, that might slow him down. And finally, finally, he found it.
The side of the mountain.
The Kid dangled over the edge, legs swinging below him, the fingers of his left hand white from the effort of holding on for dear life. The world was quieter now. He could feel the breeze, even hear the cry of a hawk some distance off.
Don’t look down, don’t look down.
He looked down.
Oh, look. The ground. Was that the ground? It was so hard to tell, it being so far away and everything.
He looked back up.
He reached out with his right hand, grunting with
the strain, and finally the tips of his fingers grazed the edge. He held on fast. And then—then he wasn’t sure what to do next. He tried to pull himself up, but the dust beneath his fingers was slippery and the effort almost made him lose his grip. The side of the cliff curved in away from his body, so his feet had nothing to rest on. He stopped trying to pull himself up and just kind of hung there. Waiting.
Hanging.
Waiting.
Hanging.
Waiting.
And also…
Hanging.
Check out The Explorers: The Door in the Alley—those folks acknowledged there? Still awesome, and still worth acknowledging!
In other words: Ditto.
Huge additional thank-you to screenwriter Young Il Kim, author and zoologist Jess Keating (who didn’t mind my taking a few liberties with shark family dynamics), and Kuku Yalanji woman Larissa Walker. Your assistance with this book is so greatly appreciated, and your insights helped make it what it is today!
ADRIENNE KRESS is a writer and an actress born and raised in Toronto. She is the daughter of two high school English teachers, and credits them with inspiring her love of both writing and performing. She has a cat named Atticus, who unfortunately despises teeny hats. To learn more about Adrienne, visit AdrienneKress.com or follow @AdrienneKress on Twitter and Instagram. And look for the first book about Sebastian and Evie, The Explorers: The Door in the Alley, available from Delacorte Press.
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