The Ravens of Solemano or The Order of the Mysterious Men in Black

by Eden Unger Bowditch

  Miss Brett had grown to love these children dearly. To her, they were more than pupils, and more than charges. She cared deeply for each and every one of them. She was so very glad to see them basking in pleasure with their parents again.

  “Now that looks like a mighty fine spread,” said Dr. Banneker, looking at the table. He pulled a chair out for Miss Brett, then went over to Wallace and put a large hand on his son’s small shoulder. “You need more meat on them bones, son,” he said, patting Wallace’s shoulder. The boy winced. When his father wasn’t trying to make him grow, he was reminding Wallace that, given all their brownskinned ancestors of scientific fame and glory, he had mighty big shoes to fill. Sitting down beside Wallace, Dr. Banneker piled more eggs and cakes onto his son’s plate, then did the same for himself.

  “He’s, well . . . That is certainly a full plate,” Miss Brett said. She knew Wallace was not much of an eater, and that he would never finish that plate. That said, Miss Brett did notice how much Wallace had grown already. He was still small for his age, but the slightly pudgy little boy was leaner and taller than when they had met all those months ago.

  Before breakfast, Wallace, like the others, had been working on an invention—actually, an experiment with magnets. At the age of ten, he was quite a chemist.

  Miss Brett had been sitting by the fire. “What are you doing there, Wallace?” Miss Brett had asked as she counted stitches. She was knitting scarves for each of the children.

  “I’ve weighed this rare earth element and introduced a small layer of bismuth on one side, since, after consideration, I felt it would be the strongest elemental choice. See . . .” Wallace showed how the magnet in his hand caused the thimble on the armrest to roll away from him instead of toward him. “The bismuth has created a diamagnetic reaction,” he said, “pushing away instead of pulling toward itself, repelling instead of attracting as one would expect.” Wallace adjusted his glasses and looked at Miss Brett, smiling.

  Her hands had stopped knitting, and she simply stared. She had become quite used to being told things that were well beyond her ken. She often gazed blankly at the inventions and experiments of the brilliant children in her care. Though she was used to it, there were times when she was still shocked by what they could do.

  She realized she was staring with her mouth open. She shook her head to break the spell and smiled broadly at him. “Well, now that is something,” she finally said.

  Wallace adjusted his glasses again. “I’ve considered that this would create the strongest magnetic force. We had decided that neodymium might be better than the cobalt.” By “we,” he’d meant he and his colleague, but before breakfast, his colleague had been busy feigning sleep in her mother’s lap.

  “How did you do all this?” Miss Brett leaned over to see his magnets.

  “We used the small sintering furnace from the laboratory to heat the powder. I combined it with steel.” Wallace held the plaster mold in his hand. It had cooled and was ready

  “Mmmm,” said Miss Brett.

  Opening the mold, he had smiled, dropping the magnet into his palm.

  “You’ve made a perfect sphere.” Miss Brett was amazed.

  Wallace smiled and showed her another he had made earlier. The old one was perfect, too. He polished it against his shirt and nodded to himself. Yes, the alloy would make the strongest magnet. He could already feel it tugging toward the coin in his pocket—the lucky coin his father had finally returned to him.

  Wallace had managed to balance the magnet between the iron coils. Then he pulled the coin from his pocket. Carefully, Wallace got it to float between his magnets.

  Miss Brett gasped. “Wallace, how clever! It . . . it’s like magic!”

  “It’s science,” he said.

  “To me, science is magic,” she said. “And these magnets are amazing.”

  “I’ve always loved magnets,” Wallace said, “ever since my father read me Gilbert’s De Magnete when I was four.”

  Miss Brett did not know who Gilbert was or what De Magnete was, either, though she could hazard a guess that it was a book about magnets.

  “Lovely, Wallace! You’ve done it!” said Lucy, who had stopped by the window on her way back from checking on the journal. “What if we could get droplets of water to float?” Lucy watched the rain fall across the plains. “If there was enough iron in the water, we could use the property of diamagnetism and float water—or even a little froggy!”

  “A froggy?” Noah asked from the pile of his chess pieces. “A floating froggy?”

  Frogs aside, Wallace did start thinking of creating a diamagnetic field and floating droplets of water. As interesting as magnets were when pulling things to them, the idea of pushing things away—or both at the same time—was more fascinating.

  “We could make a dynamo, a generator, using the magnetic reaction to generate power,” Wallace said to Lucy.

  “We could make a magnetic torch that lights itself, and we could carry it with us!” cried Lucy.

  “An electro-magnetic torch,” Wallace considered. He could clearly imagine the mechanism. It would never run out of power.

  Miss Brett again shook her own head in amazement. Those heads carried more power than any magnet could create.

  For months now, all of the children had been on a long, strange adventure. Though they seemed to have adjusted to the strangeness, their lives had truly been turned upside-down. At the moment, they all felt much safer than they had for weeks upon weeks. During those weeks, they had been left with nothing to cling to for support—nothing from their parents to reassure them. Wallace had not even had the lucky coin his father had given him; nor Noah his dog; nor Jasper and Lucy their special bracelets, given to them as babies; nor Faye her amulet, a gift from her mother. Miss Brett had seen the impact from the absence of these tokens of comfort.

  Aside from Miss Brett, they only had each other. They had worked some fabulous inventions and made some fascinating discoveries, but Miss Brett soon learned that the children were missing something important. No one had ever read stories to them. No one had read them lullabies or poems.

  Well, there was one poem, if, indeed, it could be considered a poem. Miss Brett had never heard it before. But somehow, the children all knew it:

  Strange round bird with three flat wings,

  Never ever stops when it shivers and sings,

  Never to be touched even if you are bold,

  Turns the world to dust and lead into gold.

  Three are the wings, one is the key,

  One is the element that clings to the three.

  Turns like a planet but it holds such power

  Clings to itself like the petals of a flower

  On weekends, the children had been taken from Miss Brett to houses in the city of Dayton, Ohio. There, nannies waited with arms opened wide. While the nannies had been wonderful to the children, promises of their parents’ return had been nothing but a pack of lies. Every day, Jasper and Lucy had been told the same story about late-night returns and early-morning departures. But the truth was that, in all those months, their parents never came.

  While Jasper and Lucy discovered that their parents were missing, they also discovered a secret journal. Seemingly ancient, this journal had contained no pages, only torn and tattered shreds of what once must have been. But within the bound covers, they had found written several mysterious dates—dates like “Naples in 1872,” “Amsterdam in the mid-summer of 1740,” and “Edinburgh in the late autumn of 1738.” There was no explanation as to why these dates were there. The only clue was written on the cover. There were only three words: “Ymng Inventors Guild.”

  The children did not know what the Young Inventors Guild was. But they considered themselves to be the newest members. They had added their own date: “Dayton, Ohio, USA, 1903.” They had written their own notes and drawings and ideas. They had added their own inventions and kept them in the Young Inventors Guild book. This was the journal Lucy now protected.r />
  But how could wee Lucy truly protect it? And against untold dangers? The children and their teacher had all been in danger, as was their greatest invention—their flying machine. Someone came for it, and for them. Someone terrible. A monster disguised as a birdwatcher, who had placed Miss Brett in mortal danger.

  Komar Romak.

  “Oh, I’d love a biscuit,” said Lucy, clapping her hands together. She reached over and took one, placing it on her napkin. She then reached for the crusts of toast from Jasper’s plate. As Jasper reached up to stop Lucy, Wallace reached over Jasper’s plate for the milk and Faye tried to take a spoon from the tea tray

  “Ouch!” Jasper and Lucy cried, pulling their arms back and rubbing their wrists. Wallace pulled his hand back, too. Across the table from Jasper, Faye also jumped back. The twinge in her neck had felt like a bee sting.

  Noah’s mother, sitting next to Faye, jumped as well. She had been reaching to take a lump of sugar next to Faye.

  “What happened?” asked Faye, rubbing her neck.

  “It was an electric shock,” Jasper said, moving his bracelet up his arm to better rub the part of his wrist where it hurt.

  “From all the way over here?” said Faye, rubbing her necklace. It felt hot. “I’m across the table from you. I was only reaching for—”

  “You must have turned your head too quickly and pinched your nerve,” her mother said quickly, looking at her husband. She reached over to rub Faye’s neck, looking at her daughter with concern. Faye looked at Jasper. Silently, they agreed.

  “There’s something you’re not telling us,” insisted Faye.

  Dr. Clarence Canto-Sagas seemed to plaster a smile on his face that did not extend beyond his lips. His eyes seemed to hold a different emotion, more like concern.

  But suddenly, Lucy leapt up, nearly knocking over her plate. She jumped up and down, pointing toward the window.

  “Look!” she cried. “There’s someone coming toward us!”

  Someone was an odd thing to call the large mechanical contraption lumbering toward them. It was not yet very close, but they could still hear the sound of clanging.

  “Goodness, is that another train?” asked Miss Brett. Her vision could not clearly capture the thing.

  “Not a train,” said Jasper. “Father, do you—” But his father was running from the room.

  Within seconds, his father returned, and then he, too, ran to the window.

  Then, suddenly, they all felt a jolt—not as if they had hit something, but as if something had slapped the train with an electric hand.

  “What is that?” Lucy asked, still pointing and jumping. “It’s so shiny!” She hurried to the window, her nosed pressed against it. “It’s so shiny, shiny, shiny!”

  Miss Brett stood up, holding a plate of scones, and went over to Lucy

  There was, indeed, something shiny Now—off in the distance, but not as far as the horizon—there was a very shiny sparkle, like a mirror or something silver. The strangest thing was that it seemed to be floating in the air. And even stranger, it seemed to be going away from the train, as if the train had been its origin.

  “Goodness,” Miss Brett said, without a clue as to what the shiny object was. She watched with the others as it looped past the lumbering contraption.

  Dr. Ben Banneker stood up, throwing a look of concern to the other parents. The tension among them was thick.

  “I don’t know what that could be,” said Jasper. All five children were pressed against the window, looking at the shiny thing that now seemed to be getting closer while still hovering well above the ground. “I thought it was getting smaller, but it looks to be the size—”

  “The size of Faye’s head,” said Noah, pretending to measure Faye’s head. “And, like Faye’s head, it’s getting bigger every second.”

  Though Noah was being funny, what he said was actually true—not about the size of Faye’s head, but about this floating orb of energy, silver and glowing, looping back around and closer.

  “Maybe it’s getting bigger because we’re moving toward it,” said Noah, feeling he was wrong before he said it. No, it was moving with intent.

  “Could it be a reflection from the silica in the sand?” asked Wallace, wiping and replacing his glasses, looking toward his father, then peering more intently through the window. He already knew that his suggestion was impossible. Reflections did not hover. Nor did they move through the air of their own volition.

  “It’s definitely not a reflection. It’s hovering,” said Noah, saying aloud what Wallace had realized silently, “and reflections don’t hover like that. And they don’t fly through the air.” For now it was clear that, more than hovering, the floating orb was flying toward them—or perhaps circling around back toward them after it had gone around the metallic contraption. Either way, it felt as if something was wrong.

  The man in the frilly apron came for the empty platters and teacups and pot. He was followed by the very short man with the very tall black top hat and the long black leather jerkin, and behind him, the man with the black chef’s hat was carrying a fresh tea tray.

  “Come look!” called Lucy. She took the frilly apron man’s hand and pulled him to the window. “I’ve found a shiny thing!”

  Dr. Tobias Modest caught the chef’s-hat man’s arm and whispered something in his ear. The man gasped. Then the parents all huddled together, exchanging inaudible words with the top hat man.

  Faye’s face went hot again, but it was Jasper who spoke: “What’s going on, Father? Tell us, please!”

  The frilly apron man hurried from the room, the top hat man and chef’s-hat man following suit. Within seconds, the train seemed to pick up great speed.

  “Take them to our room,” Dr. Canto-Sagas said to Miss Brett. “I . . . we . . . Just take them, please.”

  “You know what’s happening, too, don’t you?” Noah said, rounding on his father. Clarence Canto-Sagas turned from his son.

  Wallace looked up at the looming form of his own father. He opened his mouth to ask, but his father shuffled him along toward the door of the train car. As he was shuffled, he caught a glimpse of the hovering thing going back toward the lumbering contraption.

  “You all know what it is, don’t you?” Faye would not be moved so easily. She could see how the parents were avoiding the eyes of their children. “Are we in danger? Are we in danger from the machine, or from the shiny thing circling around it? I want to know and I want to know now!” Faye could feel the bile rising with her fury. Her cheeks felt hot and flushed. “I hate when you do this! I hate when you don’t tell me what’s going on! I hate it!”

  “We . . . we don’t . . .” But Faye’s mother turned toward the window, fear clearly visible on her face.

  With one arm, Miss Brett pulled the children to her, spreading that arm protectively around them as best she could. Unconsciously, she still clung to the plate of scones in her other hand.

  “Go to room,” the man in the chefs hat insisted in his odd mysterious-man-in-black accent as he tried to hurry the children and Miss Brett along to the sleeping car.

  “What is the shiny thing?” asked Lucy pulling away and pointing out the window. “It is lovely. Is it naughty or nice?”

  But there was no answer, from either the parents or the mysterious men in black. Instead, the bonnet man returned to Dr. Banneker and left the children where they were.

  From her apron, Lucy removed the spyglass she had made when they lived at Sole Manner Farm. She stood at the window. The other children moved to join her.

  Miss Brett, suddenly aware of the plate of scones in her hand, started to place it on the table, then stopped abruptly

  “Get down!” shouted Dr. Banneker.

  Noah turned toward him. “What’s—”

  And that’s when something loud and strange happened. What it was might be called an explosion—but it was not the explosion.

  It was nothing like what was to come.

  Suddenly as if the ground
was on fire, lightning crackled across the plain. The electric lights on the train grew bright, then blew out. Only the dim glow of the few gas lamps still burned.

  But no one really noticed that. It was the contraption they noticed.

  Another bolt of lightning, coming across the ground instead of from the clouds, hit the contraption and blew it sky high. Lucy yelped and dropped her spyglass.

  For a moment, there was silence.

  “What was that?!” Jasper asked, breathless.

  Then, with a jolt, everything in the room shook. The plate of scones flew from Miss Brett’s hand, landing with a crash on the table. The jug of milk cracked open, knocking over the pitcher of juice, which rolled around, tipping over the glasses. The quake shook the very ground on which they rode. It shook the train, and even seemed to shake the hills around them. Rocks tumbled down and cracked as they fell, grinding along the train tracks. It felt like thunder rising from beneath them. It knocked almost everyone to the floor. Next to Wallace’s elbow, a lamp tipped over and lit a bread basket on fire. He jumped up as Miss Brett grabbed the pitcher with the last bit of juice and managed to put out the small but growing flame.

  The train started inching along instead of running smoothly But then, with a big jolt, it seemed somehow to right itself back into its chugging groove and began to pick up speed.

  “Look at you!” Noah said, laughing as he pointed at Jasper.

  In his reflection in the glass window, Jasper saw his hair standing on end. Running his hand through it, he grinned. He looked at Noah. “You, too!” he said. Then, looking around the room, he saw that everyone’s hair was standing on end from the static electricity

  Normally, the sight of them as they climbed to their feet, with hair like so many dandelions, would be enough to make everyone laugh, but their utter confusion and fear prevented it. Ariana felt the tips of her lovely locks, now floating out in every direction. Somehow, she alone could still look elegant and graceful.