Into the Gauntlet

  He listened hard as he began moving forward again. He'd only taken a few steps when he heard a whirring and then a click behind him. And then Alistair's uneven footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  The click has to mean the carabiner clips worked, Hamilton thought.

  He let Alistair pass him. He kept listening for another whirring sound that would mean his family had gotten in.

  There! Was that it? Hamilton wondered. Or--that?

  It was so hard keeping an eye on the others while also hanging back, listening for some proof that his family was right behind him.

  Was that a soft footstep? Hamilton wondered. Someone tiptoeing?

  The Holt family wasn't known for tiptoeing or taking soft footsteps, but the Clue hunt had driven them to do lots of unlikely things.

  Hamilton tried to think of some way to signal the rest of his family.

  What would they know that no one else would recognize? Hamilton wondered. Oh, yeah ...

  211

  Hamilton began tapping out the rhythm of the University of Wisconsin fight song on the rock railing that lined the stairs.

  Jonah shot him a suspicious glance from a few steps below.

  "You? Trying to make music?" he asked. His eyes narrowed and he gazed around.

  Just then the first stone hit the back of Hamilton's neck.

  212

  CHAPTER 27

  "Stop it! Who's doing that?" Jonah screamed as pebbles rained down on him. "I'll have you know--this face is insured!"

  He automatically looked around for a bodyguard to protect him, but Jonah had left all his bodyguards behind when he'd sneaked off without telling his parents. When he'd decided to be true to his own self.

  Jonah imagined his mother there, taunting him, And you thought you could win this on your own?

  * * *

  Ian and Natalie dropped to the stairs together when the first stone hit.

  "It can't be her. It can't be her," Natalie chanted. "Please tell me it's not her."

  "Of course not," Ian said. "That would be impossible." He glanced at his watch. "We've still got time."

  Another stone clattered past them.

  "It's just one of the riffraff, right?" Natalie asked anxiously.

  213

  "Absolutely," Ian agreed.

  He'd never realized what a lovely word riffraff was. The riffraff were beneath his notice. They didn't matter. They couldn't hurt him because he was superior to the riffraff of the world in every way.

  But what if the riffraff beat Natalie and him to the prize?

  * * *

  Dan swung his flashlight around as soon as he heard Jonah and the Kabras screaming behind him.

  Stones were falling from the ledge high above, where the elevator was. Dan didn't care about stones. He was more interested in the dark figure that had dislodged the stones -- a figure now swinging on a rope, past the staircase.

  "No! No! He --she --whoever --they're getting ahead of us!" Dan screamed.

  The black figure made a perfect arc and landed at the bottom of the spiral staircase, only a few paces from a door. Then the figure turned and raced toward it.

  "No!" Dan screamed. "We! Can't! Lose!"

  * * *

  Hamilton blinked, confused. Why hadn't he thought of tying a rope somewhere and swinging down past the spiral staircase?

  I couldn't see where the bottom of the staircase was, he thought. It was too dark.

  214

  He noticed that the figure by the door was wearing the same kind of night-vision goggles that soldiers used. He felt a burst of pride that someone in his family, someone on his team --Reagan? Madison? His mom? -- had been so prepared.

  "Hold on! I'm coming with you!" Hamilton hollered. "I'm on your team!"

  He shoved past Alistair, who was still looking back.

  Ian, Natalie, and Jonah were easy to jump past, since they were crouched down on the stairs.

  "I'm coming, too!" Dan screamed.

  "Not while there are stones falling," Hamilton said, leaping past both Cahill kids. Hamilton didn't stop to think if he was protecting Dan or just delaying him.

  Five huge steps later, Hamilton was close enough to grab the dark figure's arm.

  "Reagan? Madison?" he asked. "Wait! It's me! Where are the others?"

  Hamilton had probably grabbed his sisters' arms a thousand times apiece during their childhood, even if you only counted games where he held them down until they promised to do what he wanted. As he squeezed his hand tighter and tighter around the dark figure's arm, he thought, Not enough muscle to be Reagan or Madison. Then he thought, Or Mom. Or certainly not Dad.

  This arm was scrawny. And --scarred.

  "You're not a Holt!" Hamilton accused.

  215

  "Sure, I am!" the figure whispered. "Hammy, uh ... bro! Let go! I'll run ahead. You hold off the others."

  She was trying to pull away. Hamilton tightened his grip.

  "No, you're not. You're --you're--" In his mind, Hamilton ran through the hundreds of scrawny arms he'd grabbed over the years, mostly belonging to little kids back home in Wisconsin who'd proved to be incredibly eager to give him their lunch money. Somehow, he didn't like thinking about that now. He narrowed his mental search to scrawny arms he'd grabbed during the Clue hunt. At the Globe Theatre, the ninja in breeches ... "You're Sinead Starling!"

  Suddenly, Hamilton understood why he could feel scars through the girl's sleeve.

  She really did get hurt in that Franklin Institute explosion, Hamilton thought guiltily. The one my family caused...

  His grip on Sinead's arm faltered.

  216

  CHAPTER 28

  Sinead pulled away from Hamilton, but then the whole group surrounded her. Dan snatched the night-vision goggles from her head and peered through them toward the ledge Sinead had swung from.

  "Her brothers," he gasped. "If they're right behind her-"

  "Oh, no," Sinead said, trying for a carefree tone. "I left Ned and Ted back in Stratford. It only takes one Starling to outsmart you losers."

  She hoped no one could hear the way her voice trembled, the way she had to hold herself back from saying, I left them where they'd be safe. I knew this would be the most dangerous part of the clue hunt.

  She could feel the danger in everyone's cold stares.

  "Let's tie her up and leave her behind," Ian said.

  "But if her brothers do come and rescue her ..." Natalie began.

  "You don't know if I'm lying or not, do you?" Sinead challenged.

  She waited for everyone to break out fighting, as

  217

  they had back at the Globe. That way, she could just slip past them. But the rest of the group just stood frozen, gazing suspiciously at her and each other.

  At least they're too suspicious of each other to gang up on me, Sinead thought.

  "How'd you get here, anyhow?" Dan challenged.

  "I solved the hint from the Stratford church," Sinead said. "Unlike the rest of you, who just followed Amy and Dan." Everyone except Amy and Dan looked away guiltily. "Then I invented an ultralight plane to fly out here and land on the top of the cliff. I just had an intuition that I might need to include new technology for landing in such a tight space. After that, it was no big deal to reprogram the doorway to let me in."

  She decided not to mention that even though she was the one who'd stolen the computer disk in Stratford, Ted had figured it out. And Ned had invented the ultralight airplane long before the Clue hunt. And the bit about reprogramming the doorway was a complete lie, meant only to flush out whoever had left the carabiner clips there.

  Hamilton's face turned slightly red--Aha, Sinead thought.

  "Really, you're going to need my help going the rest of the way toward the prize," Sinead bragged. "Just look. There's a riddle right on that door that I bet none of the rest of you are going to be able to solve."

  She pointed to a sign she was sure no one else had noticed.

  218


  It read:

  ON THIS ISLAND

  A FAMILY SPLIT APART.

  ON THIS ISLAND

  A FAMILY CAN REUNITE.

  "There's an extra syllable in the second line, if that's supposed to be poetry," Sinead said. "And an anagram of 'reunite' is 'uni-tree,' which is undoubtedly a botanical reference. And--"

  "Sinead, that's not a riddle," Amy said. "It's the truth. It's--it's what the Madrigals are hoping for."

  She pushed past Sinead and shoved the door open.

  "See?"

  219

  CHAPTER 29

  Amy's hands shook as she held the door. She dared to glance back over her shoulder at the others.

  "Madrigals have wanted to get the family back together since the very beginning," she said softly. "We're descended from Madeleine, the fifth child of Gideon and Olivia Cahill. And--"

  "They didn't have five children!" Hamilton protested. "They had four!"

  The others nodded and grumbled, agreeing with Hamilton, not Amy.

  She swallowed hard and forced herself to go on.

  "Olivia was pregnant when Gideon died. Madeleine was born after the others fought and scattered. And then it wasn't safe to tell." Amy didn't feel safe now. She tried to finish. "So the Madrigals just want to stop the fighting. They want harmony. Peace. For ... for..."

  She couldn't quite speak the word forgiveness in front of Alistair, who'd helped kill her parents, and Jonah and Ian and Natalie, who'd tried to kill her and

  220

  Dan. Or even Sinead, who'd never been anything but mean.

  "Turns out we're the good guys," Dan chipped in.

  "Oh, right," Ian sneered. "And that's why Madrigals are always stealing other branches' clues, destroying all their plans --"

  "To keep any one branch from having too much power," Dan explained. "For balance."

  Amy couldn't tell if anyone believed him. She swung her flashlight forward, through the doorway. The light illuminated another door and another keypad, with a very obvious purpose this time. This keypad held five buttons in a circle, each one labeled:

  [Proofreader's note: The top button says MADRIGAL, the upper right button says TOMAS, the lower right one says JANUS, the lower left one says EKATERINA, and the upper left one says LUCIAN.]

  "Look at that," Amy said. "Doesn't that prove the Madrigals want everyone to get along? Because someone from each branch needs to be here before anyone can go on?"

  221

  Nobody answered. They were too busy surging forward to press the buttons. Alistair and Sinead each seemed to be trying to elbow past the other to get to the Ekat button first. Alistair was also watching Ian and Natalie, and Amy and Dan.

  Amy's heart sank.

  He thinks the keypad could backfire, dividing people within each branch, instead of uniting anyone, Amy thought. And he's right. It could. Not with me and Dan, but the others...

  The door clicked open and everyone scrambled through, casting suspicious glances at one another.

  Amy sagged against a wall. She must have accidentally hit some sort of switch because the room was suddenly bathed in light.

  "Another museum?" Dan groaned.

  It was.

  Just like at the other branches' strongholds, Amy thought.

  Looking at the roomful of display cases steadied her. Unlike the Janus museum, with its amazing art, or the Ekat museum, with its dazzling and horrifying inventions, these exhibits were fairly plain. An ordinary-looking wooden table stood in the very center of the room, as if occupying the place of honor.

  Amy drifted toward it.

  The table had a display case on top, containing two sheets of paper: one, clearly ancient, was covered with old-fashioned writing in an indecipherable language--

  222

  Gaelic, maybe? The other page was crisp and white and typewritten, with a label at the top:

  A TRANSLATION FROM OLIVIA CAHILL'S ORIGINAL ACCOUNTS

  Amy gasped and began reading:

  Our family dining table was one of the few items saved from that awful fire in 1507. This was due to mere happenstance, as I had had Thomas and Luke carry it outside earlier in the day so that I might clean and polish it in the bright sunlight. I did not know the darkness that was to come. I look at the table now and can still remember happier times: my husband, my children, myself, all whole and alive, laughing and talking over bean soup or porridge.... I sit at this table with only Madeleine now, her with her bread and jam, me with my sorrows, and I tell her, "Bring them back. Gather them here again." I will not see Gideon again on this earth, but my dearest wish would be to see Luke and Katherine, Thomas and Jane --and Madeleine and me! --all sitting around this table together. Please, Madeleine, please...

  223

  The words trailed off, and then there was more, clearly written at a later time:

  My dearest wish will never be fulfilled. Madeleine's searches bring her news only of deaths, scattered around the globe. I cannot recount them all --the pain is too great. I cannot accept that my children have died so far from me and from one another, in such estrangement. Madeleine tries to comfort me with the notion that now there will be many waiting for me in the next world -- happier versions of themselves, more forgiving, less contentious. And, in truth, I long for that. I am an old woman; I am not far from the next world myself. But I still have hopes and fears in this one. I know that my husband's ambitions and aspirations unleashed devastation and horror on our family; it is my greatest fear that my family might--nay, has already begun to--unleash even more devastation on the world at large. I believe this can be stopped only if my family comes together again and forgives the past. It is too late for Luke and Katherine and Thomas and Jane, but perhaps their children, or their children's children ... I have a new dearest wish. It is that someday a descendant of each of my children --even Madeleine's --will sit at

  224

  this table together. They will let bygones be bygones. They will carry from the past only that which can be helpful to the future. And then the Cahill family will be at peace.

  Amy had tears in her eyes when she stopped reading. She trailed her fingertips along the tabletop --the tabletop a happy family had eaten at for many years before tragedy and betrayal shattered their lives. She remembered how upset her own mother had always been when Amy and Dan squabbled when they were little.

  Olivia Cahill had been that kind of mother, too. All she wanted was for her children --or their descendants --to get along.

  On this island a family split apart. On this island a family can reunite, Amy thought. Can it be as simple as everyone sitting down at a table together?

  She hastily brushed her tears away. She turned around, ready to suggest this to everyone else. But something stopped her.

  The worst thing Dan and I ever did as little kids was fight over toys, Amy thought. It wasn't that big a deal that Mom always got us to make up. But Olivia Cahill--and the Madrigals --expect everyone to "let bygones be bygones" when the "bygones" are murder?

  She could feel her heart hardening a little, the pain of her parents' deaths outweighing anything she felt about Olivia Cahill's wishes.

  225

  It just isn't possible, she told herself, the thought she'd kept returning to ever since Jamaica.

  Just then there was a rumble overhead, a sound like thunder. The floor itself seemed to shudder.

  And boulders began plummeting down from the ceiling.

  226

  CHAPTER 30

  Amy dived under Olivia Cahill's table.

  "Dan! Over here!" she screamed. "Hamilton!"

  The lights snapped off, plunging the room into total darkness. Now Amy could only hear the falling rocks, not see them.

  This was worse.

  "Dan! Dan! Dan!" she screamed.

  She could hear Dan and Hamilton calling out to her, Ian and Natalie calling out to each other.

  "Everyone under the table!" Amy called out to all of them. "It's the safest place!"

/>   Then she heard something hit hard on the table above her. The table leg she was clutching cracked.

  What if no place was safe?

  * * *

  Dan grabbed Hamilton's arm and took off running toward his sister's voice.

  "This way!" he screamed.

  227

  The falling rocks cracked and exploded around them, throwing up rock dust.

  Dan couldn't breathe.

  "Go on without--" He tried to scream.

  Hamilton didn't listen. Hamilton lifted him up and carried him.

  * * *

  "It's her!" Natalie screamed hysterically. "It's her!"

  "Just run!" Ian screamed back to his sister.

  He heard Amy calling out something about a safe place.

  He started running toward her voice.

  * * *

  Alistair staggered and fell, his cane knocked out of his hand. He checked quickly to make sure none of the secret compartments in the cane had sprung open, nothing had spilled out. But he was disoriented -- it felt like the rocky ground had jumped up and hit him. And was still hitting him.

  Maybe that was because the air was full of rocks, too.

  "Can't," he murmured. "Can't move."

  He'd faked his own death in a cave-in back in Korea, tricking Amy and Dan and Bae. Was this fate's way of laughing at him? Could he die in a cave-in for real, so close to the final prize?

  228

  "Can't... die ... now," he whispered.

  "Oh, no," a voice said above him. Hands started tugging on his shoulders, pulling him away from the rocks. "I'm not going to let you die."

  It was Sinead.

  Now a new word formed on Alistair's lips: Why? Why would anyone save him?