by Laura Ruby
“The pages!” he said. “There’s an image on them! Look!” He picked up the ledger, closed it, and showed them the edges of the pages, which were a dull-iron gray. But when he opened the cover and slightly fanned the edges, a picture appeared.
“It’s a fore-edge painting!” said Tess.
Theo smacked himself in the head. “The one kind of hidden cipher I didn’t think of.”
“You can’t think of everything,” said Tess.
“I should have,” Theo grumbled. Normally, Tess would have made fun of him, but since he’d been trying to do Nine’s job, soothing Tess during her nightmares—and during her daymares—she’d been as nice as she could be. Which was mostly nice. Though, sometimes, when she despaired she’d ever get Nine back again, she wasn’t very nice at all.
They gathered around the book. The painting depicted a grand hall with elaborate ironwork arches and columns and a large clock suspended from the ceiling.
“I know where that is. That’s the inside of Station One,” Jaime said. “When we visit my aunts in South Orange, we take the train from there.”
Underneath the image was a message:
Stop the clock in dead of night
To wake what sleeps and stir their flight.
“Well, that doesn’t sound too ominous,” Jaime said.
Theo said, “Dead of night. Station One is open twenty-four hours a day, but our families’ apartments aren’t. How are we going to sneak out in the dead of night? And what time, exactly, is the dead of night?”
“When it’s darkest, I’d say,” Jaime said.
Tess ran a finger over the words. “‘To wake what sleeps.’ But what is sleeping at Station One?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Ominous.”
“Maybe mice are sleeping,” Theo said. “Doesn’t have to be something scary.”
But by this time, Tess had a strange feeling. That whatever the Morningstarrs had left sleeping at Station One was no mouse.
And if they woke it up, there was a chance they would never get it to sleep again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Theo
They decided that staying at Jaime’s overnight was too risky. That his grandmother would surely hear them if they tried to sneak out of Jaime’s apartment in the middle of the night. But since Tess had so many nightmares, Theo’s parents and aunt were used to hearing some noise from upstairs, especially lately, since Nine wasn’t around. The three of them would stay in the twins’ room and sneak out the window at midnight. Theo told his parents that they didn’t have to worry about anything, that he would take care of Tess if she had a nightmare. Which seemed to surprise them.
But it wasn’t the first time Theo had surprised them. His parents didn’t understand why Tess had so many more nightmares than Theo did. Once, however, Theo had something that Tess had not. When Theo was very small, he’d had an imaginary friend.
“Can you set a place for Pink?” he’d asked his mother, as she set the table for dinner.
“Who’s Pink?” asked his mother.
“Pink. My friend. He’s right there.” He pointed to a chair.
His mother frowned, but his dad nodded. “Okay, here’s a plate for Pink. I hope he likes brisket.”
“He loves brisket,” Theo said. “And mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are his favorite.”
“Good to know,” Theo’s mom said.
“Mashed potatoes don’t get stuck in his teeth. He has a lot of teeth.”
“Really?” asked Theo’s mom. “Is he a shark?”
“What? No!” Theo said.
“A tiger?”
“No.”
“A lion.”
“No! He’s a wolf.”
“Is he a pink wolf?”
“Why would a wolf be pink?” Theo said.
“Right, I’m sorry. Sometimes I get confused,” said Theo’s mom, smiling in that way that grown-ups smile when they think you’re doing something cute instead of something serious. Pink was a big, bad wolf, who could get bigger anytime he wanted to, and that was serious business. Very serious. The reason Theo didn’t have as many nightmares as Tess was because Pink watched over him. No one would have a nightmare if they had a Pink.
Anyway, it was not something to smile about.
“Why are you smiling?” Theo demanded.
“Mom is smiling because you have a friend,” said Theo’s dad.
“That’s not why she’s smiling,” Theo muttered.
“It is,” said Theo’s mom.
“Never mind. Pink doesn’t want brisket anymore.” As he stomped away, Theo overheard his parents talking about his “imaginary” friend, which only made him angrier. Grandpa Ben said that all sorts of things—stories and machines and medicine—started as ideas in people’s imaginations. Pink was not imaginary, and even if he was, that didn’t make him any less real.
Later, at night, after he had read Theo one last story, Grandpa Ben told Theo not to be angry, not to be sad, because when Theo’s mom was little, she’d had an imaginary friend, too.
“Was it a wolf?” Theo asked.
“No. Not a wolf.”
“A shark?”
“No, not a shark. It was a girl.”
“That’s boring,” said Theo.
From the other side of the room, Tess yelled, “Girls are NOT boring!”
“You’re boring,” Theo said.
“HA!” said Tess, who was not boring at all, and knew it.
“Your mom’s friend was named Ms. Trixie. And Miriam—your mom—liked for us to set an extra place at the table, too. And Ms. Trixie came with us to the library and to the park and even on vacation. Your mom didn’t like to go anywhere without her.”
“What did she look like?”
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t see her. But your mom said she wasn’t very tall, but she seemed tall, if that makes sense. She could do cartwheels and other tricks. And when your mom was sad, Ms. Trixie would sometimes smooth her hair.”
That didn’t sound very interesting to Theo, at least, not as interesting as a ginormous wolf with too many teeth, but he was pleased to hear that his mom had had a friend once, too. Everyone needed friends.
Now the only one awake at eleven p.m., Theo wished he still believed in Pink, still believed he had a wolf to watch over him while he caught some sleep. But it seemed that he and Tess had switched places again. They had gone to bed early, at nine thirty, and she hadn’t twitched once. Ono was cradled in one arm. Jaime was sprawled out over the top of his sleeping bag, breathing softly, one ’loc on his forehead lifting up and then dropping down with each breath. But Theo could not get comfortable. He worried that his mother wouldn’t be able to find Nine and Karl, that they were gone forever. He worried that Tess wouldn’t be the same after. Maybe Cricket, too.
Theo worried until eleven forty-five, and then he woke Tess and Jaime. They zipped themselves into Aunt Esther’s coveralls, figuring that the station was bound to have workers wandering around and there might be a chance they could blend in. They stuffed tools—a wrench, a screwdriver, a chisel, a small hammer—in their pockets. They arranged their bedding and the sleeping bag so that it appeared they were still in them. Then, they eased open the window screen and climbed out to the small deck off the third floor. Even though Theo’s parents slept with a dragonfly fan whirring overhead to drown out the noise of the street, the three of them crept down the wooden stairs as slowly and quietly as they could. They waited in the backyard for a few moments, just in case, but no lights went on in the house, and nobody came rushing out to ask them why in the corn nuts they were out of bed, for peanut butter’s sake?
They hopped on the N train. Anywhere else, you might expect the trains to be empty at midnight, but New York was as alive at night as it was during the day. Plenty of people still packed the Underway cars all the way from Queens and into Manhattan. In their shapeless uniforms, no one looked at them twice, not even the Guildman manning the train. Ono watched the caterpillar drift across
the wall of the car, and whispered, “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” to himself.
They got off the train at Station One. Theo had been here before, but he was always awed by how magnificent it was. When this was all over, he would build a replica of the station, complete with every stone pillar and all of the twenty-two stone eagles that graced the frieze on the front of the building. In that moment, he realized how weird it was to contemplate a future without the Cipher. In the few short months they had been working to solve it, it had consumed every waking minute and most of their sleeping ones. Who would they be without this grand puzzle to solve?
“Theo!” said Tess.
“Huh?”
“You were having a spell.”
“What? I was not.”
“I’ve been calling your name for a full minute.”
“I was thinking.”
Tess considered him, opened her mouth to say something salty, he was sure. Instead she said, “Okay. We should find the clock, though. We have to be back before anyone else gets up, otherwise Mom will never let us out of the house again.”
Inside, the station got more magnificent, and Theo was awed all over again. Ironwork arches decorated the ceiling of the enormous atrium. The moon poured silver through the framed skylights overhead, turning the polished marble floors to elaborate chessboards. Grand staircases were tucked in every corner, delivering travelers upstairs to the waiting room and restaurants and downstairs to the trains that could take them as close as Queens and as far as the Pacific. And, all throughout the atrium, there was the hiss of giant gears, the murmur and thud of the machines that powered the Underway, hammering like so many hearts.
“Theo!” said Tess. “Snap out of it!”
“Clocks, Theo,” Jaime said.
Though there were a number of clocks in the station, each grander than the next, the largest and grandest hung in the middle of the lobby, over the widest tunnel leading to the train platforms.
“That’s got to be it,” Jaime said. “Looks just like the one in the picture on the ledger.”
“A good place to start, anyway,” said Theo. “But that’s pretty high up there. How are we going to get to it?”
“We need a ladder,” said Tess. “A really tall ladder. Where are we going to find a really tall ladder?”
“I’m sure I’ve got one in my pockets somewhere,” Jaime said.
“So now your pockets are Hermione’s pocketbook?” said Tess.
“Whose pocketbook?” said Theo. He wondered why a purse was called a pocketbook, and then why it was called a purse.
“There’s got to be a janitor’s closet around here,” said Tess.
They stood there, looking up at the clock in frustration. Jaime’s pocket beeped. Since there weren’t as many people in the lobby, he unbuttoned the pocket and let Ono peek out.
“To the Land of Kings,” Ono said.
“Uh-huh,” said Jaime. “We have to get up there but we need a ladder.”
“To the Land of Kings,” Ono repeated.
“Do you know how we can get a ladder?” Tess asked the robot.
“How would the robot know where we could get a ladder?” Theo said, irritated again, though he had been trying to be as patient with Tess as she had been with him. Ono reached up with its stubby robot arms. Except they weren’t so stubby anymore. The ends of the robot’s arms burst with new silver blocks, adding to their length with a tiny snap! snap! snap! Theo glanced left and right and left again. The few people in the lobby were slumped on benches or staring bleary-eyed at the board that listed the incoming and outgoing trains. No one was paying attention to these “workers.” The three of them might as well be invisible.
“Wait, is it me or are its arms getting longer?” Jaime said, peering into his pocket.
“Try putting it on the ground for a minute,” said Tess.
Jaime set Ono on the ground. As soon as he did, Ono’s arms grew and grew—snap-snap-snap-snap—and so did its legs—snap-snap-snap-snap. Between the arms and the legs, horizontal rungs burst and bolted themselves across the verticals. Jaime caught both of Ono’s “feet” and held them as Ono’s limbs extended until they reached the clock, then another set of verticals extended back to the floor, making it into a standing ladder.
Jaime shook his head in wonder. “I shouldn’t be surprised by anything by now, but . . .”
Again, Theo glanced around, but still, no one was looking at the three of them and their magical Morningstarr ladder. Maybe workmen dragged ladders out here all the time.
“Do you think it will hold the weight of a person?” Tess said.
“Yes,” said Theo and Jaime at the same time. Nobody laughed.
“I’ll go,” said Jaime. “I’m the strongest.”
“You’re the strongest, but I’m the lightest,” said Tess.
“I’m the lightest,” Theo said.
“We’re about the same size,” Tess said. She was trying to be kind. She knew he wasn’t one for heights or tricks or acrobatics or skinny robot ladders reaching up a story or two or or or or. But Theo and Tess were not about the same size, not anymore. Tess had grown a lot, but Theo’s height was still mostly in his hair.
“Theo might be the best person to stop the clock,” Jaime said.
“So let me try,” said Theo. “If I can’t make the climb, then one of you can.”
“Are you sure?” Jaime asked.
“No,” he said. “Give me all the tools you’ve got. I might need them.”
Tess and Jaime gave him everything they had and he stuffed them into his own pockets. Then, he carefully put a foot on the first rung of the ladder. He pressed, testing, and then he placed his second foot on the rung and waited to see if the rung gave.
“To the Land of Kings!” Ono squeaked, seemingly impatient. The robot’s “face” and “body”—if you could call them his face and his body—were way up in the middle of the ladder. Just a couple of tiny boxes, one stacked on top of the other.
“I’m coming,” Theo said. The first few rungs were no problem. One foot after the other, he told himself, don’t look down. But the higher he got, the harder it was not to look down.
He looked down.
Oh no.
His calf muscles cramped, his hands locked around the rungs. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to control his breathing. His ragged exhalations seemed to echo all around him, the marble floors and the metal arches and the shiny skylights bouncing them right back at him.
“You’re doing great,” Tess said. “Just a little more.”
Theo was not doing great.
And it was not just “a little more.”
But he willed himself to keep going. A little farther, and a little farther after that, and again and again. And then he bonked the clock with his head, and he almost fell off the ladder, his stomach feeling like it’d dropped somewhere around his feet.
Keeping one hand tight on the ladder, he stared into the face of the clock. A quiet but persistent tick-tick-tick emanated from it, like the chirp of some relentless insect. Theo tried opening the glass front of the clock. Didn’t work. He reached around to the back of the clock and found a latch. He opened the latch to expose the works. The ticking grew louder. Swallowing hard, Theo glanced down. None of the passengers roaming around seemed to be paying attention. He steeled himself and gingerly felt around the movement of the clock, his fingers brushing against gears and weights. A weight-driven clock that didn’t need to be wound, a weight-driven clock powered by . . . what? The light pouring in from the ceiling? The movement of the air? The energy of atoms spinning? The verse from the fore-edge painting ticked in his mind:
Stop the clock in dead of night
To wake what sleeps and stir their flight.
How was he to stop an unstoppable clock? Smash it with a hammer? Eviscerate it with a crowbar? And even if he could stop it, should he? The clue sounded ominous. The last time a clue sounded so ominous, he and Tess and Jaime managed to take down their whole building, an
d instead of stopping Slant, Slant was more powerful than ever. Not for the first time, Theo wondered exactly what the Morningstarrs really wanted, what the Cipher really wanted.
Down below, Tess coughed with impatience. They had come so far. He had to know. He had to.
Theo felt around the works again, his nimble fingers finding a wire. He didn’t need any of the tools that Tess and Jaime had given him to yank it away from its connection.
The ticking stopped.
Theo waited for something else to happen, anything else to happen, but nothing did. He glanced down at Tess and Jaime and shook his head.
“Come down,” Tess shout-whispered.
Theo took a deep breath and willed himself to take a step.
“You’re not moving,” said Jaime.
“I’m getting ready to move,” Theo muttered. “Give me a second.”
Just as his foot hit the rung below, he heard a strange rumbling sound. He gripped the ladder and looked around, but he didn’t see anything except for a bunch of sleepy train passengers doing exactly what he was—looking for the source of the noise.
Another rumble and more cracking sounds like tumbling rocks. Coming from outside somewhere. But where?
And what?
“Oh no,” said Ono.
“Hurry!” Tess said.
Theo made it a quarter of the way down the ladder when there was a bone-rattling crash. Across the lobby, an enormous window shattered, glass raining to the floor below. People covered their heads as something large and silvery darted through the air, circling, showering everyone with bits of rock and dust. Another huge silvery thing crashed through the window and circled the other way.
Theo froze on the ladder as one of the large silvery creatures passed so close to him that he could have jumped on its back and ridden the thing straight to Mordor.
He had just enough time to say, “Well, the eagles are finally here,” when the tip of a huge wing hit the ladder, knocking Theo right off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jaime
Jaime stood there in shock as the great silver eagle knocked Theo off the ladder, and Theo fell and fell and fell. It took so long, the falling, so, so long. Ono was shouting, “Oh no!” and Tess was shouting, “Oh no!” and Jaime was, too. It seemed like hours before Jaime could make himself dart forward, arms out, as if he could catch Theo without both of them being smashed to pieces on the marble. “This is so stupid,” he said to himself. “You’re not Superman.” But just then, another eagle swooped down, caught Theo by the collar. The eagle landed only long enough to drop Theo to the floor before it launched itself into the air once again.
