Vespers Rising

  “Your family is safe?” he asked, though he did not seem terribly concerned.

  “Gone to the mainland,” she said. “They could not bear the sight of these ruins. Or of you, my lord.”

  “Indeed? Leaving you all alone?”

  “I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” she lied, “with the priest and the town elders and a good number of townsfolk. Gideon was well loved by your people.”

  Lord Vesper tensed, and Olivia knew he understood her meaning. Vesper might have many servants and allies around the world, but he was not well loved by his own people. If word began spreading that Vesper had a hand in Gideon’s death, killing a man the peasants believed was a saint, working to free them from the plague …

  “I see.” Vesper backed up a step. He looked down at Gideon’s body, and his nose wrinkled with distaste. Then he froze. Vesper had noticed the ring.

  “A beautiful trinket,” he mused. “It looks different somehow….”

  “A token of my love to Gideon,” Olivia said as casually as she could manage. “An heirloom of my family.”

  “Will he be buried with it?”

  Olivia felt the moment’s importance, as if she were poised on the edge of a knife. Generations of Cahills — the future of the world itself — might be shaped by what she said and did next.

  She tugged the ring off her husband’s finger and thrust it toward Lord Vesper. “Do you want it, my lord? My wedding token to Gideon? Would you deprive me of that, too? Go on, then. Take it!”

  Vesper’s lip curled. He stepped away, immediately losing interest.

  As Olivia had hoped: Anything freely given couldn’t be worth much to a man like Damien Vesper. And a token of love? Worse than useless. He was a predator, a hunter by nature.

  “There is no need to search the ruins,” he decided. “Nothing could have survived.”

  “Because you were here when the laboratory exploded,” Olivia guessed. “You saw it yourself.”

  Vesper smiled coldly. “We’ll leave you to your grief, madam.”

  Olivia eased Gideon’s head off her lap. She stood, clenching her fists. “You’ll do more than that, my lord. You’ll leave this island, and you’ll never come back.”

  The guards frowned, obviously confused. Had a ragged, soot-covered woman just ordered Lord Vesper to leave?

  “This is Cahill land,” Olivia said. “Given by royal charter. You are a guest here, but no longer. Leave now, my lord. I must bury my husband.”

  Vesper stared at her, his knuckles white on the pommel of his sword. Olivia met his eyes and let him know that she — a woman, a grieving wife and mother — was more dangerous right now than any weapon he could ever create. She would get her way, or she would destroy him.

  One dangerous predator to another, Lord Vesper seemed to understand her. He nodded, his cold eyes boring into hers.

  “Very well,” he decided. “There is nothing left here worthy of my attention, at any rate. But, madam, I am still the lord of these lands. I will keep my eye on you and your family. If I find you have deceived me, if I come to suspect that you have hidden anything from me —”

  “A widow and her children?” Olivia asked, feigning amazement. “How could we hide something from the eyes of Lord Vesper?”

  Vesper wavered, perhaps catching a whiff of her sarcasm, but his pride won out. “Indeed,” he muttered. “Remember me, madam. For I will remember you.”

  He turned and left, his guards falling in behind him.

  Olivia did not relax until they reached the docks in the distance. She watched as the guards began preparing the lord’s boat for crossing.

  She turned to the ruins of her family house, the burned garden, and the dining table sitting in the fields, the only part of her old life left unscathed.

  She looked down at her husband’s pale face. No one would help her bury him, but she would manage. She would lay him to rest in the same graveyard where Cahills had been buried for generations.

  Olivia might not be ladylike, young, or beautiful. She might not warrant a second look from a man like Lord Vesper, but she was strong. She could handle a shovel as well as a dagger or a cooking fire.

  She slipped Gideon’s gold ring on her finger, though it was much too big. She would need a chain to put it around her neck, she decided.

  “I will keep it safe, Gideon,” she promised. “Vesper will never have it.”

  Whatever Lord Vesper was hunting, he wouldn’t succeed — not as long as Olivia Cahill drew breath. And she had a more important goal to keep her going. She must find a way to bring her children back.

  “Some day, Gideon,” she swore, “our family will sit again around this dining table. We will come together.”

  She glanced up as the morning sun illuminated the cliffs. Near the top was the cave where Gideon had proposed to her, and where Gideon’s great ancestor, Madeleine the Matriarch, had surveyed the island and claimed it for her own.

  Olivia rested her hand on her belly, though she could not feel the child kicking yet.

  “I will name you Madeleine,” she said. “You and I will preserve this place and bring our family back together.”

  Olivia kissed her husband’s golden ring. She would keep the ring a secret, next to her heart, for the rest of her life.

  She must be strong. She needed no serum for that. She only needed her faith in her family. Someday, the Cahills would reunite. No one, not even Lord Damien Vesper, would stop her from succeeding.

  She picked up a shovel from the garden and went to dig her husband’s grave.

  MADELEINE CAHILL 1526

  by Peter Lerangis

  As the last student fell unconscious to his desk, Madeleine Babbitt thought about lies.

  She’d lived inside them all her life. Lies and secrets. Now she could shout out the truth, and no one would hear it. She smiled as she pulled a pencil from under the face of a slumped-over Flynn O’Halloran. His head thumped, echoing through the Xenophilus Institute of Alchemy, a grand name for a one-room schoolhouse made of clay and dried peat.

  Maddy Babbitt, scared as a rabbit, they called her. She had acted the part almost all of her nineteen years. To keep attention away. To keep from being noticed. She almost believed she was that person. The stammer and the apologies had become part of her until her bolder side nearly faded away. Today, when Flynn had swiped her project notes and read them aloud, she had shrunk away. A sleeping potion — aren’t you boring enough? he’d taunted. Everyone had dared her to demonstrate. So she had.

  And it felt wonderful.

  “Sleep well, my friends,” she said, capping a vial of amber liquid. She glanced outside, looking for Professor Xenophilus, who had missed class today. A pity. He was probably lost in his own laboratory work, concocting medicines and marvelous inventions.

  “As you only sniffed the potion on a handkerchief,” she continued to the silent class, “you will waken in five minutes, fizzy and refreshed. Had it entered your bloodstream directly, it would take an hour.”

  Her stammer was gone. How liberating to speak to a stupefied audience! As she placed the vial into a pouch that hung around her neck, she felt fit to burst. Two decades of pent-up secrets bounced around inside her like unruly puppies before an opening door. “And also,” she blurted out, “my name is not Maddy Babbitt! It’s Madeleine …”

  Say it! Go ahead.

  But try as she might, the name Cahill stuck in her throat. Her training was bone deep.

  As sunlight poked through the clouds and into the room, a tiny windmill of black-and-white sails began to turn on a table. These knocked a pebble down a chute, striking a hook that released a weighted pulley, which in turn raised a small spring-loaded hammer. The hammer then struck a brass gong, signifying the end of alchemy class.

  Soon the distant tune would sound — Mother summoning her, expecting help in the apothecary. Leaving behind the sleepers, Madeleine raced outside. She sped down a sloping path through heather and scrub. A low bank of clouds swept over the m
oor, casting the village of Scáth below in gray-green mist.

  Madeleine looked up to the soft-ceilinged sky as she ran. She thought of her father, a man she’d never met. Mother claimed he had been the greatest alchemist and an even better father. She hoped that wherever he was, he was looking down and seeing the results of her alchemy training. Even more, she hoped he was proud.

  In a moment, her shoes hit the cobblestones of town. She wove through winding alleys that echoed with the distant sound of a tin flute, piercing and sweet. This was Mother playing a tune called “Bhaile Anois,” which meant home now. It was composed by Father and had become the traditional Cahill family song of summoning. As she ran, Madeleine waved to the pink-faced baker and soot-blackened chimney sweep, the burly butcher and weary lamplighter.

  She dashed around the corner of Front Street. Carriages groaned up the hill, passing an old beggar woman who slept in the shadow of an abandoned stable. Ahead, the street descended toward the lake, where it flattened and followed the gentle curve of the bank. At the bottom of the hill stood O. Babbitt & Daughter Apothecary.

  Madeleine slowed. Before the shop, a crowd of people had gathered in the street. A group of men was pounding on the front door. They were dressed in hooded capes of purple and black. Behind them stood a massive wooden dray cart tethered to pack horses. On the cart, three men lay moaning and half dead. Shackled to the cart’s frame, his clothes ripped and face covered in blood, was Professor Xenophilus.

  Madeleine stopped.

  The old man slowly turned his gaze up the hill. His deadened eyes settled on her. He gestured feebly with an arm that hung at an odd, unnatural angle. Run away, his body language was saying.

  One of the caped men spun toward Xenophilus, smacking his head with an open fist. The teacher’s knees crumpled and he fell to the cobblestones. “Old fool,” the man bellowed, “are ye sure there be Cahills here?”

  Madeleine stumbled backward at the sound of the name she’d only ever heard uttered by her mother.

  How did they know? How could Xenophilus —?

  Last week. Under her teacher’s observation she’d sampled an earlier version of the formula. Just a bit. Upon awakening, he’d scolded her about proper dosage. Too strong, and the potion induced coma! Ah, but too weak, and the recipient was half awake, unable to stop from saying his or her innermost thoughts!

  The look on his face had startled Madeleine. His usual jovial, patient expression had changed. He seemed confused, as if seeing her for the first time.

  I must have told him that day, she thought. Under the earlier, weaker formula, I must have revealed my name. It made sense — her father was so often on her mind. Surely Xenophilus would have recognized the name of such a famous alchemist.

  And now the secret had been beaten out of him — because of me, she thought. But by whom? Who were these people?

  A loud crack rang out. The men were using a wooden ram now, and the apothecary door was about to give.

  “We know you’re in there, woman!” a voice shouted.

  “Mother!” Madeleine screamed, running down the hill.

  As she passed the stable, the beggar woman moved. Springing to her feet, she grasped Madeleine by the neck and dragged her into the shadows.

  Over the years, Madeleine’s training had included ancient fighting techniques to subdue men of great size and strength — but nothing for homeless old women in alleyways. “Let go, you old buzzard!” she cried, struggling against an iron grip.

  As she whirled and lashed, the old lady countered every move. “Good grief, will you stop making such a racket!” she finally cried out. “They’ll hear us!”

  Madeleine froze in mid struggle. She fell to the ground and looked up into her adversary’s face. “Mother?”

  Olivia Cahill pulled back her woolen hood. “This old buzzard just saved your life,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry!” Madeleine protested.

  Olivia put a gentle finger on her daughter’s lips. “We must be quiet, and quick—”

  Below them a voice boomed, loud and angry. “Open in the name of Lord Vesper!”

  Vesper.

  The name hit Madeleine like a shift in air pressure. As if the entire world were converging on her, pressing against her heart and brain. All her life, Damien Vesper had seemed more bogeyman than real — the shadow in the closet, the monster under the bed. He will find us or die trying, Mother had said. And he will stop at nothing to get the secrets of the 39 Clues.

  Some monsters, Olivia had warned, were real. And to ward off this one, all Madeleine had needed to do was keep her mouth shut over the years.

  One simple request, and she had failed.

  “I-it’s my f-f-fault, Mother!” Her stammer had returned with a vengeance. Madeleine felt the weight of her own betrayal. She had not only put Xenophilus’s life in peril but exposed her and Olivia to their nemesis.

  “Hush, darling daughter. It was only a matter of time. They have been trying for nearly two decades.” Olivia’s voice was parched. Reaching down into the folds of her ragged dress, she pulled out a small leather box. “Consider how lucky we are that we avoided them long enough for you to be prepared.”

  Prepared?

  Madeleine felt anything but. Yes, for years she’d been learning the secrets of the 39 Clues, undergoing physical and mental training, tracking rumors about her siblings. Still, it had all seemed so … abstract. She had been born after the explosion that killed her father. She’d never met her brothers and sisters. Somehow, the Cahill saga seemed more legend than real, like the tale of the monster Vesper.

  Another boom, like a cannon shot, echoed from down below.

  Olivia flinched. “I had such hopes — we would outlast him, you would never face him in your lifetime…. But so be it. We will act quickly and decisively. Take this box — and please, recite for me your promises!”

  Madeleine grabbed the box with shaky fingers. Mother had called this the Endgame Strategy. She hated the name. “B-b-but you will come, too, won’t you?”

  “He doesn’t know you exist — so you must go forth alone, as planned. Your brothers and sisters are full of anger. They blame one another for your father’s death. We will need to work on them. Be careful, and remember: Smartest always beats strongest. I will destroy what little is left of your father’s work, and then I shall follow. Now, please, let me hear the promises. …”

  Madeleine’s mind raced, trying to remember. Father had a ring. It was an ugly thing, but it contained secrets. Secrets Olivia had never explained. Keep Father’s ring safe. That was Number One. Number Two was —

  Another sickening crack rent the air. A volley of triumphant voices.

  The men were in.

  Olivia stiffened. “I will go in the back way and hope they do not find the hidden door. Go!”

  “But — the promises —” Madeleine protested.

  “Just remember them, Madeleine, and whatever you do, stay alive. And one more thing. Do not look back.” Tears in her eyes, Olivia cupped her daughter’s face and planted a kiss on her cheek. “And may God go with you always!”

  Before Madeleine could say another word, her mother was gone. Into the shadows and through a secret back door to the apothecary.

  Madeleine stepped toward the door in pursuit. Her ear suddenly pinged with a high-pitched whoosh. She felt a trickle of blood down her neck. An arrow.

  A finger’s breadth to the left and it would have split her brain.

  “You! Come out of the shadow!” a voice called up from below.

  He doesn’t know you exist.

  There was work to be done. The Endgame was afoot.

  Madeleine turned her back to the voice. Vesper could not see her face. She began to run, away from the stable, up the hill. She heard shouts and felt the zing of arrows all around her.

  She heard another voice shout from below: “You imbecile, it’s a lassie — too young for the wife! Spare my lord’s arrows and help prepare the powder!”

  Mad
eleine darted around the next corner. She knelt by the brick wall of the bakery and caught her breath. Blood had pooled in the well of her collarbone. Carefully, she touched the wound, but it seemed already to be healing.

  The powder. What had he meant by —?

  A sudden explosion rocked the stones beneath her feet. Inside the bakery, shock waves caused rolls and bread loaves to clatter to the floor.

  As Madeleine scrambled to look around the corner, she heard a shriek that rose to an unearthly pitch and then ended in a guttural rattle.

  The apothecary and the stable collapsed in a heap of brick and flames, with Olivia Cahill inside.

  Madeleine could do nothing but scream.

  1. Keep the ring safe.

  2. Never let anyone abuse the power of the 39 Clues.

  3. Unite the Cahills when the time is right.

  The promises were stamped in Madeleine’s brain. She hadn’t recited them as her mother requested, and now they would not let her go. She drew her cloak against the bitter morning wind. Hidden behind a thick copse, she brushed away tears and glanced down through tangled, thorny branches.

  In the village cemetery, a priest intoned prayers over a freshly dug grave.

  Local merchants, arm in arm, wept for one of their own. The neighbors, many who owed their lives to Olivia’s healing skills, sobbed openly. Madeleine’s friends clutched one another. So did her fellow apprentices, long recovered from the sleeping potion.

  I am so, so sorry, Mother, she thought. But the unspoken words seemed hollow and pathetic.

  She recalled Olivia’s final two requests: Stay alive. Do not look back. Already Madeleine had broken the second one. Perhaps if she hadn’t looked back, she wouldn’t have seen the explosion. And all this would not have hurt so much.

  Is this to be my fate? she thought. To be a promise-breaker? A secret-revealer? A betrayer of the people I love most? A bringer of death?

  Madeleine could not stand the hiding. The fakery and failure. The idea that she had trained all her life for … what? What did any of it mean, now that her mother was dead?

  She rose on unsteady legs. She would run down the hill, fling herself on the grave. She would beg God to return her mother and take her instead.