“Wake up, Alexa. Wake up!” How long had I been out? How long had a squirrel been screaming at me in his squeaky voice? This was all a dream, all of it — the talking animals, the wall, and the rodent doing cartwheels on my chest — all a delightful dream.
The squirrel had his face in mine now, his mouth wide open, revealing a surprisingly stout set of teeth. He bit down softly, then harder, right over my nose, and I was awake.
“Murphy!” I yelled as I jerked up into a sitting position, sending him head over heels off the end of the bed with a harsh thud. The first soft light of morning crept over the wall into the room. I had slept for almost four hours.
Murphy climbed onto the bed looking dazed. “You’re getting into a bad habit of tossing me around rooms.”
“All in a day’s work for a hero,” I countered, and then added a profound apology.
“There’s trouble, Alexa. The convicts are on the move.”
“Then we must hurry.” I spent the next few minutes telling Murphy what I had discovered during his absence. Once wound up, it takes a great deal of effort to get him calmed down again, and news of my progress sent Murphy into a fit of enthusiasm. I finally had to grab him by the midsection and hold him in midair to calm him down. After a few seconds, he hung there, limbs dangling, chest heaving up and down.
“Let’s not get too excited,” I said. “We still don’t know Sebastian’s real identity, and I fear we’ve run out of time. I think what we’ve discovered can still do some good, but I’ll need your help to make sure.”
I knew he would be willing to go on another errand, and I quickly explained what I needed him to do and sent him on his way. He would be gone for more than an hour. As for me, the sun was coming up and the time had come to talk with my father.
I crept into the bathroom, quietly opened the door to his room, and peeked inside. His room was dark except for the ray of light pouring in from where I stood. The light turned everything a glowing shade of shallow orange. His familiar deep breathing filled the space. I tiptoed to the other side of the bed and crawled over the covers. It was warm, and I had to overcome the urge to sleep again.
“Father?” I whispered. Then again, only louder, “Father?”
He stirred and rolled to his side facing me, smacking his lips and rubbing his eyes. His hair was formed into a high golden arch, which made me laugh out loud. Father opened his eyes.
“Alexa. How nice to see you,” he said in a dreamy voice, and then his eyes slowly shut once more. I called his name again and this time he sat up, fully awake.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
“I’m tired, but yes, I’m fine.”
We looked at each other for a long moment.
“I have a lot to tell you,” I continued.
“What do you mean?”
I sat up and wrapped the thick blanket from the bed around my shoulders and told my father all the details of the previous few days. Well, almost all the details. Midway through I decided the notion of talking animals was something I would keep a secret. It served no purpose to tell him, and I had grave concerns about how the knowledge might be put to use once word spread in and around Bridewell.
When I was finished, I asked him the question I had been asking myself all morning: “Who do you think Sebastian is?”
He rubbed the stubble on his flushed cheeks and gazed thoughtfully across the room.
“I don’t know, but we must share what you’ve learned with the others,” he said. “Get dressed and be in the meeting room in half an hour.” He rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom, stretching his arms over his head and lowering them again as he went. I remained motionless, afraid to move, the warm blanket still surrounding me. He splashed water on his face, then turned to me, water dripping from his thick beard. “Get up, Alexa. There’s no time to waste.” It was an order, not a request.
I crawled out of the big bed and touched my feet on the chilly wooden floor. As I walked past him into my own room, I brushed up against his legs and he knelt down beside me. He placed his giant hands on my shoulders, and I realized something new about my father, something I had never thought of before. If he chose to, he could crush me with those monstrous hands; it would take him almost no effort at all. Instead, as if aware of my new understanding, he pulled me close and hugged me for a long time, my small head in his hand, and he whispered in my ear, “What am I to do with you, my crafty little girl?” And then he released me and returned to his work at the washbasin, running both hands through his golden funnel of hair.
With my bathroom door closed, I dressed and prepared myself for the meeting. I wore my green long-sleeved shirt, a red button-up vest, and a brown armless tunic with a brightly colored hem down the front. I topped it off with my snug leather cap and tucked my hair behind my ears. A short while later I heard the door to my father’s room open and close, his footsteps pounding in the hall and down the stairs until I could discern his movements no more. I opened my window and looked all around for Murphy, but an hour into his task he was nowhere to be found.
I picked up my bag and trudged down the hall in the direction of a mysterious room I had never stepped foot in.
One day last summer I had been so bored that I began sneaking around Renny Lodge, hiding under tables and behind couches near the walls. It was a fun diversion on an otherwise dull afternoon, and I found myself enjoying the thrill of pretending to be a spy. I had turned every person in the lodge into an evil character in my plot to find some make-believe hidden treasure. Lost in my own world, I found myself concealed behind a thick purple curtain near the meeting room. To my surprise, the door to this mystifying room opened and Ganesh appeared, followed by Warvold and then my father. I pulled the curtain back a little more and peeked inside as the door began to shut. I saw only a sheet of light streaming in from an enormous window, glaring against silhouettes of objects in the room. As the door creaked closed, a large hand touched my shoulder, locked down, and pulled me from behind the curtain.
“I’ve told you not to sneak around. It’s for your own good, so please obey me.” It was Father. The way he’d said it wasn’t mean, but it was forceful and stern. He wandered off toward the kitchen then and left me with my heart racing. I had never since gone near that room.
And here I was, being invited into that very place only a year later, a shiver trembling through my body as I stood at the closed door. I looked to my left and saw the heavy velvet curtain hanging in a bunch against the wall. Then I grabbed the handle, opened the door, and went inside.
The meeting room was brisk and humorless with dark tile flooring and shadowy walls with nothing on them. Inkwells and worn old pens adorned two long facing tables in the middle of the room. Stark terra-cotta water pitchers and cups were placed on the tables along the edges. It was a plain room, a business room, a room without character or charm. I closed the door behind me, leaving only natural light from the imposing window on one side. Morning dust was in the air, golden and swirling in the sunlight, dancing about as people became quiet and moved into their seats behind the tables.
Everyone was present: Silas, Ganesh, Nicolas, Father, Grayson, and even Pervis, chained to a chair, hands in shackles, dutifully overseen from behind by a club-wielding guard.
We moved to our seats, my father with Ganesh on his left and me on his right. Nicolas sat next to me, and across from us at the opposite table were Silas, Grayson, and the shackled Pervis.
The last thing I remember hearing before Father began was the unfortunate sound of Pervis shifting in his wooden chair and moving the chains around his ankles. This produced a chilling clang that echoed off the high ceiling, reminding us all of his grim circumstance.
“Thank you for coming to such an early meeting,” Father began. “It means a great deal to me that you would accommodate my desire to talk with you. Assuming Pervis is adequately secured, I must now ask the guard to leave us to our privacy.” The guard checked over Pervis to be sure of his handiwork, t
hen made his way toward the door.
“Guard,” said my father, “leave me the keys.” The guard returned and stood before my father, unhitched the keys from his belt, and placed them on the desk. Then he turned and left the room.
The chamber sufficiently sealed, Father continued.
“As you all know, losing Warvold has been a serious blow to Bridewell. Ainsworth senses our new weakness, and they may take advantage of the situation. More and more people are trying to settle here, and we have nowhere to put them. Our head guard is in shackles, leaving us vulnerable to attack and his soldiers without a leader. And there are other, more sinister plots afoot that we may not even be fully aware of.
“Grayson has been here longer than anyone; he is an old and dear friend. Silas is a new addition to this group, but someone I feel we can trust. Nicolas is new as well, but he is clearly a gifted leader and someone who will no doubt be an important part of our future. My dear friend Ganesh — words cannot express how important you are to Bridewell and what will become of it. I have also invited Alexa to join us this morning. The need for her presence here will become clear in a moment.”
He paused and looked at our chained companion. “And Pervis. What will become of you? I fear we have made a mistake in locking you up, but I can’t bring myself to set you free.”
As Father poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the table, I became aware of a strange movement from the edge of the large facing window. It was small, almost unnoticeable, like a twig caught in a spider’s web, dangling on a puff of air. Murphy was back.
His body was hanging outside the sill by one paw, and he was waving with his other paw to get my attention. He kept waving and waving. Then the little leg shot out of sight and I heard a faint flit as he lost his grip and scraped along the outer wall.
“Father, may I stand at the window for some fresh air? The dust is a bit thick,” I said. He nodded and continued talking.
“A week ago Alexa discovered a way outside the wall, and she just completed two days in the mountains and the forest before returning here yesterday.”
A collective gasp filled the room.
“Have you lost your mind? She could have been killed out there!” Ganesh cried. Grayson looked as though he would rather have been under the table where no one could see him, and poor Silas stared at me as if my lies had broken his heart.
While the group asked questions of my father, I arrived at the window, placed my back against the wall, and felt blindly along the edge for a furry mass. Murphy was gone, but he had left me a gift on the flat of the stone sill. I picked it up.
“Listen to me,” Father said with a raised voice, and the room grew quiet again. “Alexa did this on her own accord without my knowledge or permission. But I think we will all be thanking her before this meeting is over.” He shot an accusing look at Grayson, who sat slack-jawed and gazing across the room.
“While Alexa was outside the wall she discovered a narrow tunnel that led to a position from which she could see an underground chamber,” Father continued. “The chamber is part of a labyrinth of underground tunnels created from the mining effort to build our walls. The tunnels and chambers wind all around The Dark Hills and even directly under Bridewell itself. A group of people, people with Cs branded on their faces, live within these tunnels.”
“Why, that’s preposterous!” yelled Nicolas. “Do you realize what that would mean?”
Everyone else sat motionless, some with mouths hanging open, calculating the implications of such a fact. I was back in my seat, and my father nodded to me. I removed a wooden tube from my bag and handed it to him.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” he said. “I have a map here that shows the layout of all the tunnels and chambers. Another collection of tunnels resides aboveground covered by thick brush, which is how these criminals maneuver without detection, scrounging for food and water.
“These men are angry, and for years they have been plotting to enter Bridewell and take it over. They could attack the city as early as tomorrow night, and we are inadequately prepared to deal with such an attack.”
“This can’t be possible,” said Ganesh. “We sent those prisoners back. Warvold escorted them all the way to Ainsworth. I tell you this cannot be possible!”
“I’m sorry, Ganesh, but as much as I wish none of this were true, I don’t think Alexa is making these things up. Please, just let me finish. I have more I need to tell you, and then you can ask all the questions you want.” Everyone went momentarily quiet and still. The faces across from me expressed shock and confusion.
“Warvold was a mysterious man, and his wife, Renny, was maybe even a little more baffling than he was. As you know from our conversations with Nicolas, she was fond of a certain kind of artwork called a Jocasta. She was kind enough to leave these veiled treasures hidden all around us, and Alexa has used them to help solve a puzzle I think both Renny and Warvold wanted us to figure out after they were gone. We have to face the fact that Warvold’s death set in motion the end of Bridewell as we know it. What that means is still a mystery, but one thing is certain — we’re not all on the same side in the battles that will soon be waged.”
I pulled a piece of paper from my pack and handed it to Father. “This is a drawing of a Jocasta Alexa found hidden within a medallion on one of the library cats’ collars. For those of you who may not know, those cats used to belong to Renny Warvold. As you can see from Alexa’s drawing, the image shows three boxes, two connected, that when joined together clearly equal the third.” I pulled the spyglass out of my pack, extended the three sections, and handed it to my father.
“The three boxes on the Jocasta represent the three sections of this spyglass, which was given to my wife as a gift from Renny Warvold. Each of the three sections on this spyglass contains another Jocasta, and it is within these that an important message is revealed.”
My father pointed his finger to the first tube in the spyglass. “The Jocasta on the first section depicts a man groping at an object above and to his side.” Pointing to the second tube, he continued, “The Jocasta on the second section reveals a human figure, kneeling with arms raised, praying to an unseen god. And here, on the third section, the Jocasta is nothing more than a simple letter S.”
My father paused and looked around the room at the confused faces staring back at him.
“Fascinating,” said Nicolas. “The convicts, the labyrinth of spooky tunnels, the messages all hooked together through my mother’s art projects. It’s a bit far-fetched, to say the least. Nonetheless, your daughter spins a mighty good tale, and I can’t help but want to hear the outcome.”
Without further comment, and with the reassurance of a nod from Grayson and Silas, Father went on with what I had shared with him earlier that same morning.
“On the night when Warvold died, he told Alexa a story. It was about six blind men who all felt an elephant and thought it was something different because of the part they were touching. One touched the tail, another the side, yet another the head, and so on. Thus the depiction in the first Jocasta stands for an elephant. The symbol on the second Jocasta is self-explanatory — it represents the worship of some unknown god. The letter S on the final section might have held no meaning to Alexa had it not been for her encounter with the convicts.”
It was here that my father motioned me to rise and speak, and I lied to protect the animals. “According to two convicts I watched and listened to in the underground chamber, there is a traitor living among us,” I said. “This man is their leader and goes by the secret name Sebastian, thus the letter S.”
A burst of gasps again filled the room, not the least of which was from Ganesh, as he looked at me with horror on his face.
“You’ve gone too far now, Daley. Stop with this nonsense!” he shouted.
“Really, you two, this is too much,” said Grayson.
There was a mixture of mumbling around the room, and then a voice was heard that no one expected.
??
?I personally helped escort the convicts to Ainsworth.” It was Pervis, his head down, facing the floor.
He looked up then, and surveyed the room from side to side. “Only thing is, Warvold stayed in Ainsworth for several days after my guards and I returned to Bridewell. It could be that he bought their freedom, or otherwise persuaded Ainsworth to set them free outside. He was a peculiar man and he often made secret, unusual decisions with implications only he understood. Don’t think for a minute that he didn’t expect things to unravel as they have. We may yet see his wisdom in all this before we’re through.” He scraped his chains across the table, turned, and gestured toward the window. “In any event, we’ve known for a long time that creatures move around in The Dark Hills. My guards and I see them all the time. Maybe now we know what they are.”
“Oh, come on, Pervis, this is simply ridiculous!” Nicolas exploded. “Are you telling me you believe the fantasies of a child?”
For the first time since I had entered the meeting room, I felt conviction and courage and even some anger. So much at stake, and such closed minds. It would take something more concrete to get this group to believe. I pushed my chair out and walked to the window. I stood for a moment with my back to the group and observed the sickening stone wall. It looked almost alive with its green ivy veins shooting in all directions. When I turned around to address the men, I had a new passion in my eyes.
“I have more to tell.”
CHAPTER 21
THE DARK HILLS DIVIDE
All my hesitation was gone. The people sitting at the tables, the things I knew were true about the convicts, the meeting room itself — none of it scared me any longer. Years behind the wall had blinded these men to the world outside. But the wall had taken more than their freedom to experience the outer world. I could see that it had stolen their ability to figure out the truth.
I unfolded the paper Murphy had left for me on the windowsill.