Tower of the Five Orders

by Deron R. Hicks

  Colophon had her persimmon tree. Case had his treehouse.

  Two days ago Case had sneaked across the back side of the property and over to the treehouse. He was going to be leaving for England soon, and he just wanted to sit there for a little while and forget about everything that had happened. He had expected the main house to be empty—the movers had already packed up most of the family’s belongings and put them in storage. But he had been surprised to see cars arriving at and leaving the house. Treemont, he had understood from his father, had no interest in living in Manchester. But it sure looked like someone was doing something at the house. Case was too far away to tell exactly what.

  He considered texting his sister and telling her about it. But he knew what her response would be.

  “Find out what’s going on,” she would say. And he was already determined to do just that.

  So Case now found himself sitting in the treehouse just before dawn and staring through a telescope he had borrowed from the Parkers. Mr. Parker and his father had grown up together in Manchester and had played in the woods where Case’s treehouse now stood. Mr. Parker, who remained one of his father’s closest friends, hadn’t asked why Case needed the telescope or where he was headed at such an early hour. He just told Case to be careful and to call if he needed help.

  Case had arrived before sunrise, set up the telescope in the window facing the house, and waited. Shortly after nine a.m., the first car arrived. He recognized it from two days ago. Case peered through the telescope. It was Treemont, accompanied by two men in dark suits. Treemont exited his car and headed inside. The two men walked around the house and then got back in the car and sat in the driveway.

  A rental car carrying a man and a woman arrived a half hour later. They went inside the house before Case could get a good look at their faces.

  He turned the telescope to the library windows on the front of the house. The wooden shutters were partially shut and the glare from the rising sun made it difficult to see, but Case caught glimpses of movement in the library. Someone was definitely in there.

  He sat down in the small folding chair he kept in the treehouse. He knew that to find out exactly what was going on, he would have to get into the house. That could prove tricky. The men in the car appeared to be security guards. And he had only a couple of days left before he would be on a plane to England. Time was not on his side. But he also knew that he had a distinct advantage. He had grown up in that house. He knew every crevice, casement, corner, and closet. If anyone could break into the house undetected, it was he.

  And that was when Case heard someone speaking. He couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but the voice seemed to be coming from the pasture.

  He peeked through the window.

  One of the men from the car was walking across the field in his direction. His heart jumped in his chest.

  Had the security guard seen the treehouse?

  No.

  Case knew that it was impossible to see the treehouse from the driveway during the summer. The thick foliage and deep shadows obscured any view of it.

  And then it occurred to him. They hadn’t seen the treehouse—they had seen the sun glinting off the lens of the telescope. He might as well have been yelling at them with a bullhorn and waving a flag.

  Now he was trapped. If he climbed out of the treehouse and made a run for it, they’d see him. The canopy of the woods was thick—but that same thick foliage had long since stunted any undergrowth that could have hidden him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Discontent

  Discontent—A restless longing

  for better circumstances.

  Letterford residence

  Clerkenwell, London, England

  Thursday, June 14

  4:00 p.m.

  “Coly!” yelled Meg Letterford. “Come downstairs. We’re going for a walk.”

  Colophon had spent much of the last two days moping about the house or holed up in her room. They had been the worst two days of her life. Her whole world had been turned upside down. Her home was in Manchester, Georgia—not London, England. So much of what mattered to her was gone—the persimmon tree in the field, the bench near the lake where she would sit and read for hours, the doorframe in her bedroom where her father had measured and marked her height every year on her birthday.

  She had no desire to take a walk. All she wanted to do was sit in her room.

  But Meg Letterford was persistent.

  “Coly! This is not a request. We have to get to the train station to pick up Maggie!”

  Colophon jumped to her feet. Maggie!

  She missed her golden retriever so much. She threw on her shoes and bounded down the stairs. Her mother was waiting in the foyer.

  “I thought that might get your attention,” her mother said. “We have to pick up Maggie at five-thirty at Victoria Station.”

  “That’s a long way to walk,” Colophon said.

  “I think a long walk is in order,” her mother replied, and headed out the front door.

  Colophon hustled to catch up with her.

  They walked several blocks without saying a word.

  “I know you have questions,” Meg finally said. “Ask them.”

  Colophon did have questions. For two days every conceivable scenario had played through her mind.

  “Will we be okay?” she asked at last. “I know parents always say everything will be okay, but will we?”

  Meg’s response was firm and certain. “We’ll be fine.”

  “But what about your job?”

  “I’m going to Oxford tomorrow to discuss a position as a visiting professor. I hope you don’t mind tagging along, but your father has . . . other matters to attend to.”

  “I don’t mind,” Colophon replied. She really had no choice. Julian had not yet returned from Wales, and her father had been in and out of the house for the last two days.

  “What about Dad? What will he do?”

  “He was offered a position with Letterford and Sons, but he just couldn’t accept it. He said he couldn’t bear the thought of working for Treemont.” Meg cleared her throat. “So your father has . . . well . . . he’s accepted a position as an editor with a newspaper here in London.”

  “That’s great!” Colophon replied. “Is it the Times? Or the Standard?”

  “No, not quite.”

  “The Daily Mirror?”

  “No.”

  “The Sun?”

  “No.”

  Colophon was exasperated. “Then exactly which newspaper?”

  “The London Scoop.”

  Colophon stopped walking. “The Scoop? Did you just say the Scoop?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that can’t be right,” Colophon said. “Isn’t that the newspaper that insists the prime minister is an alien?”

  “That would be the one.”

  “And that dinosaurs still live in Wales?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that Canada doesn’t really exist?”

  It was Meg Letterford’s turn to be exasperated. “Yes, that’s the one. The owner of the Scoop is a friend of your father’s from college. Your father needs a job until everything gets settled, and his friend is willing to help out.”

  Colophon knew it was difficult for her father. But taking a job at the Scoop told her just how bad things were.

  “Sorry,” Colophon said apologetically.

  Meg put her arm over her daughter’s shoulder. “What do you say we go get Maggie and welcome her home?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Viewless

  Viewless—Providing no view.

  Manchester, Georgia

  Thursday, June 14

  11:15 a.m.

  The man in the dark suit stood at the base of the large oak tree. “I told you I saw something shining in the woods,” he whispered into a small walkie-talkie. “It’s a treehouse.”

  “Check it out,” said the voice in his earpiece. “Mr. Treemont to
ld us not to take any chances.”

  The man clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt and slowly climbed the wooden ladder up to a small porch, then carefully eased himself onto it. He paused to catch his breath and listen for any sign of movement.

  Nothing.

  The door to the treehouse was closed, so the man gave it a slight nudge. It did not appear to be locked. He pushed it in.

  “It’s empty,” the man said into his walkie-talkie. “Just a bunch of old junk—posters and rocks and stuff.”

  “Can you tell what was shining?” the voice in the earpiece asked. “Is there any sign of a camera or surveillance equipment?”

  The man walked over and plucked a glass Coke bottle off the window ledge.

  “It was a bottle,” the man said. “Just the sun shining off a bottle.”

  “Great work. Are you going to bring it in to be questioned?”

  “You’re quite the comedian,” the man replied. “Did you want to explain to Mr. Treemont that we saw something and didn’t check it out?”

  “No,” said the voice. “But I suggest we keep this piece of detective work to ourselves.”

  “Agreed.” The man stepped back onto the porch and prepared to climb down the ladder. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  Case could hear the creaking of the ladder as the man descended. He heard the thud of the man’s feet hitting the ground and then the soft crunch of footsteps walking through the woods and into the field. Case lay perfectly still on the roof of the treehouse, the telescope at his side. His father had warned him on numerous occasions not to climb up on the roof, but he didn’t think his father would mind in this particular instance.

  Although he had heard only one side of the conversation, the man in the dark suit was clearly convinced that the Coke bottle had caused the reflection. Still, they now knew about the treehouse. They might decide to come by and check on it periodically. It would be too much of a risk to return to the treehouse. And, Case decided, if he was going to take a risk, it was going to be a really, really big one. But first he needed to convince Mr. Parker to let him retrieve something from the facility where his family’s possessions were being stored.

  Letterford residence

  Clerkenwell, London, England

  Thursday, June 14

  9:35 p.m.

  Maggie jumped up onto the bed, plopped down at Colophon’s side, and promptly fell asleep. Colophon reached over, patted the golden retriever lightly on the head, then turned back to her laptop. Her mother had been right—a walk was just what she had needed. She had spent too much time feeling sorry for herself over the last few days. Maybe the family business had been taken away from her father. Maybe her whole life had been rearranged. But that didn’t mean there weren’t still clues to be followed. She knew the manuscripts were real, and she was more determined than ever to prove it.

  She decided that if she was going to spend a day in Oxford, she might as well make it productive. Oxford, she knew, was the home of Oxford University. The town was filled with colleges, churches, libraries, theaters, lecture halls, and ancient buildings of every size and shape. It certainly seemed like fertile ground for clues. Colophon Googled the names Letterford and Oxford together to see if anything turned up. The search produced more than five thousand results.

  Yikes, she thought.

  She skimmed over the first few pages. Most of the results had nothing to do with either Oxford University or Miles Letterford. She had not realized how many cities were named Oxford.

  There was Oxford, Alabama.

  Oxford, Ohio.

  Oxford, North Carolina.

  There was also an Oxford, Georgia—which was news to Colophon.

  And even the results that appeared to be somewhat relevant did not seem like particularly good leads. A bookstore on High Street in Oxford—the one in England—had a long list of books published by Letterford & Sons, but so did thousands of other bookstores around the globe in cities that were not named Oxford.

  She yawned and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. It was late, and she was getting tired. She scrolled through several more pages of results—and just as she was about to give up and go to bed, one result caught her eye. It was a website for a place called the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.

  At least it’s in the right city.

  She clicked on the link. It led to a list of the library’s major donors and benefactors over the centuries. She scrolled down the list until, near the bottom of the page, she found the donors from the seventeenth century and the name she was looking for: Miles Letterford. To her disappointment, however, the list was just a list. It did not provide any details as to what her ancestor might have donated, when he might have donated it, or what connection he might have had to the library.

  Not much to go on, she thought. Then again, when had that ever stopped her?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Multitudinous

  Multitudinous—Consisting of many

  parts; populous; crowded.

  Paddington Station

  London, England

  Friday, June 15

  8:35 a.m.

  Colophon looked up at the large electronic display above the ticket office. It flickered constantly with updates on arrivals and departures. The train for Oxford was scheduled to leave at 8:51 a.m., but a platform had yet to be assigned. The train’s status was listed as “on time.” A large group of men and women stood below the display sipping their coffees and waiting. No one spoke. A voice on the intercom announced final call for the train to Banbury on platform three, echoing through the cavernous station.

  The electronic display flickered once more. The train for Heathrow was now loading on platform six. As if a starting gun had been shot off, a large portion of the crowd immediately broke away and headed en masse toward platform six. Their spots were quickly filled by another group of coffee sippers anxiously watching the names and numbers flicker across the display.

  To Colophon’s right, a large ornate clock hung over the entrance to the station. It told her it was now 8:37 a.m. She took a sip of her hot chocolate and turned to her mother. “What time is your meeting?”

  “One-thirty,” replied Meg Letterford. “We’ll have some time to kill once we arrive, so I thought we could wander around the town a bit and then have some lunch.”

  “After lunch,” Colophon said, “could I take a tour of the Bodleian Library? You know—while you’re in your interview? There’s a two-hour tour that begins at one o’clock.”

  “The Bodleian Library?”

  “It’s the oldest library at Oxford University,” replied Colophon, who had stayed up far too late reading about its history. “It’s over five hundred years old. The place is supposed to be really incredible.”

  “I’m familiar with the Bodleian,” replied her mother. “I’m a professor, remember? But are you up for two hours? It’s not the kind of library you just sit in and read for fun.”

  “I understand,” said Colophon. “It just seemed liked a neat place to visit—lots of history and stuff. And it’s better than sitting in a stuffy waiting room while you have your interview.”

  The electronic display flickered. The train for Oxford was now loading on platform four.

  “I suppose,” said Meg, “I could spare you for a couple of hours.”

  Colophon grabbed her backpack and walked with her mother toward platform four.

  “Now, about lunch,” Colophon said. “Maybe we could find someplace that serves pizza?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dawn

  Dawn—A first appearance; a beginning.

  Manchester, Georgia

  Friday, June 15

  8:00 a.m.

  Case had arrived back at his family’s old property before dawn and hidden in a small stand of woods near the side of the house. There was only one way to find out what Treemont was doing—get into the house. He had briefly considered breaking in before Treemont arrived, but the hous
e had a security system. A quick peek inside the front door told Case that the red activation light on the security keypad was glowing. That meant the system was armed. Case knew the code, but what if Treemont had changed it? It would be a risk. If the alarm went off, Treemont might increase the security or abandon the house altogether. There was too much uncertainty. He would have to wait until the house was occupied.

  Case had seen Treemont’s car coming up the driveway at a little before eight. As soon as it turned out of his view, Case grabbed his backpack and sprinted from the woods to a small window at the rear of the house, just above ground level. It led to the mechanical room. He knew that the window had never latched properly. His family had used it on more than one occasion when they found themselves locked out of the house. Case waited until he heard the front door close and counted to ten. Then he gave the window a slight push. It opened wide. He dropped his backpack to the floor below and slipped quietly inside. He needed to move quickly before the men with Treemont made their way around the house.

  Case carefully shut the window and moved to the far side of the room. He sat down behind a stack of boxes and took several deep breaths.

  Calm down, he told himself. You’re inside.

  The room was dark and cool. The hot water heater gurgled, hummed briefly, and then shut off. The house was otherwise silent.

  Case’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. To his right was a door that led to the basement. To his left—hidden behind a stack of boxes—was a small access panel that led to the crawlspace beneath the front of the house. He grabbed his backpack and headed for the panel.