Outside his window, a pair of birds flew up into the tall apple tree growing to the side of his grandmother’s vegetable patch. For a moment they just sat there, quietly. Then one started chirping, only to be joined by the other a second later.
As Gabriel watched them, he suddenly remembered something. “Sing,” he mumbled, tracing his fingers down the lines to the bottom one. “I always listen to them sing,” he read, lifting his eyes to the birds and then turning them back down to the riddle. “Them. Who is them?” he mumbled, his eyes shifting upward.
I give a home to those in need
On crumbs of bread they feed
When I come to life in early spring
I always listen to them sing.
Feeding on crumbs of bread. Singing. It could mean birds, Gabriel thought. But who is I? He turned to the first four lines again.
I have seen the tides of time
Each year farther into the sky I climb
The winds of change color my cheek
Like any of you I am unique
He got the feeling that the I in the riddle did not refer to a person.
“I have seen the tides of time,” he read. “Maybe it means it’s something old.” That seemed to make sense, especially when looking at the beginning of the next line, each year.
“All right,” Gabriel mumbled, feeling his pulse quickening. “It’s something old and…each year farther into the sky I climb…high or tall.” His eyes shifted down to the fifth line, I give a home to those in need. He realized that those in need were the same ones as them in the bottom line, and them referred to birds. “So, if the I gives a home to birds, then…where do birds live?” he mused. “They build nests and…”
Suddenly it hit him right between the eyes.
“Trees! Birds build nests in trees. Yes, it IS simple.” A huge smile spread over his face. “They are old, tall and…the winds of change color my cheeks…of course, the seasons.”
Gabriel’s smile touched his eyes as he gazed out the window at the two blue jays still singing to each other. But the moment his gaze followed the birds as they flew into the air, only to land on a low-hanging branch in their neighbors’ garden, his forehead furrowed.
“Which tree?” he mumbled. “There are so many of them here.”
***
The meadow on the western outskirts of Kenton Woods was bustling with people by the time Gabriel and his grandparents arrived. Since it was early June, the sun was still a bright red ball in the sky and not likely to disappear any time soon.
“They usually light the pyramid around seven,” his grandfather explained, glancing at his watch. “Looks like we’re right on time.”
Walking through the lush grass, Gabriel saw logs, branches as well as cardboard boxes and old casks stacked up high. A tall man carrying a burning torch slowly approached the wooden pyramid, people cheering him on as he went.
“That’s Mr. Waters, the mayor,” his grandmother said, clapping along to the chorus of the cheers.
As Mr. Waters touched the torch to the dry twigs and branches at the bottom of the pyramid, the flame caught on quickly and in a matter of minutes the entire construction was ablaze. Again loud cheers rose into the air, mingling with tiny sparks dancing higher and higher into the sky. They looked like stars returning to the heavens. It was beautiful and Gabriel was surprised to hear his own voice joining in with the others.
All around the fire, portable barbecue grills had been set up, with tables of home-made chili and different kinds of salads between them. Gabriel watched a little girl with a marshmallow speared on a stick walk towards the fire. A tall man with a bushy beard hurried after her. He put a hand on her shoulder, watching her hold out the stick into the fire. The air smelled of charcoal, burgers and s’mores.
“You made it.”
As Gabriel turned around, he saw Liam walk towards him, another boy by his side. With his tanned skin and dark, almost black hair cut short, he bore a striking contrast to Liam’s light color and wavy blonde. As they approached, Gabriel saw the boy’s eyes shift from him to Liam before he said something to him Gabriel couldn’t hear.
“You guys have fun,” his grandfather said, giving Gabriel a pat on the shoulder. “We’ll be by the buffet.” He grinned and, taking his wife’s hand, they walked off.
“It’s grand, isn’t it?” Liam said, eyes big as he turned to the fire.
Gabriel nodded, his gaze shifting to the dark-haired boy who, a frown on his face, was looking him up and down.
“Jack!” Liam nudged his friend in the side, before he turned to Gabriel again. “Don’t mind him. He’s a bit…skeptical.” Liam turned narrowed eyes to his friend. “But he doesn’t mean it,” he almost yelled in his friend’s face as though needing to remind Jack of who he was. An amused grin spread over Liam’s face while Jack rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed.
Watching them, Gabriel’s head dropped forward a little and his hair swung into his face.
“So, did you have time to look at the riddle?” Liam asked.
“Well—” Gabriel started, his voice feeble, but Jack instantly cut him off. A scowl on his face he turned to his friend. “You gave him the riddle? He’s not one of us. This is none of his business. You disobeyed a direct order.”
“You never said that,” Liam objected, shaking his head. “And besides, it’s not a state secret. Maybe he can help.”
Jack snorted. “Yeah, right. Some dude from the city drops by and single-handedly figures out what we can’t.”
“I did.” Gabriel was shocked to hear his own voice, but he felt a sense of pride at having solved the riddle and he wasn’t about to let that go.
Both boys turned to stare at him, eyes wide, jaws dropped.
“I mean I solved part of it,” Gabriel clarified, taking the scrap of paper out of his pocket. “I think the next clue is in a tree. But I don’t know which one.”
“A tree?” Liam asked, taking the piece of paper. “How did you figure that out?”
In a few words, Gabriel explained to them his line of thinking. As their heads started nodding along to his explanations, he felt his pulse slow down and breathed more easily.
“That makes sense,” Jack commented, the scowl still on his face.
“I was thinking that the line…on crumbs of bread they feed…could be a clue telling us which tree,” Gabriel said, mostly looking at Liam. “Bread is not something birds eat in the wild, it’s what people feed them. I thought maybe there is a place here where—”
“Mrs. Evans’ bakery!” Liam exclaimed, eyes going wide again, as he turned to Jack who instantly mimicked his friend’s expression.
“Mrs. Evans’ bakery?” Gabriel asked.
Liam nodded. “There is a huge tree right by her bakery, with a little birdhouse in it, and every day she feeds them some of the leftover bread. It’s a thing. She always does it. Even in winter. Neither ice nor snow can stop her.” He laughed, turning to Jack. “That must be it!”
“Let’s move out!” Jack said, already turning to go. “I’ll get the others.”
“Wait!” Liam looked at Gabriel. “Do you want to come?”
Chapter 6 – An Adventure
While Jack went to get the others, Gabriel hurried with Liam over to the buffet to get his grandfather’s car keys. Drawing on his own memories of growing up in Kenton Woods, his grandfather had insisted on bringing Gabriel’s bike. ‘You never know,’ he had said.
When they found him and he dropped the keys in Gabriel’s palm, his grandfather winked at him. “Told you.”
After getting both of their bikes and returning the car keys, Gabriel and Liam met the others by the long row of cars parked down the lane leading up to the meadow.
The others were a boy and girl their age. And while Gabriel had never seen the girl before, the boy was no stranger. It was Eddie, or Edward Lawrence as he had introduced himself, from the hard-ware store. “We meet again,” Eddie said, grinning. “Told you it was a small town.”
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Tapping her foot, the girl bore the same frowning expression on her face that Gabriel had seen on Jack’s. Her dark hair tied in a ponytail, she was dressed in baggy jeans and an army-style shirt. “He looks like a brain,” she said as they approached.
“Jordan, be nice,” Liam chided.
“Didn’t say that was a bad thing,” she replied, one eyebrow rising as she looked at them. Taking her bike, Jordan headed a few steps down the lane before she turned back to the fire. “Cat!” she called, eyes scanning the hustle-bustle going on there. “Cat!”
Gabriel frowned but as the others followed after her, he joined them. Then he heard a bark and turned to look.
From in-between the gathered people by the fire, a huge Bernese Mountain Dog came running toward them. Its long, black coat flying in the wind, as it sprang forward with long strides. The heavy-set dog had a white chest and rust colored markings under its eyes and on its legs.
“Cat?” Gabriel wondered, looking at Liam.
“Don’t ask!” Jack cut in, heading up the lane.
Liam laughed. “It’s a long story. But in case you were wondering, these two,” he pointed at Jordan and Jack, “are siblings. Twins actually. So I guess the arguing is normal.”
“Let me give you a piece of legal advice,” Eddie said, coming up between them. “Do not interfere when they are in disagreement about something.”
Again Gabriel wondered about Eddie’s strange choice of words.
“That’s not legal advice, Eddie,” Jordan called from in front of them. “That’s just advice.”
As Cat reached them, Jordan got on her bike and rode down the lane, heading towards the town center and the bakery. Cat stayed by her side, and the others followed. Only Jack occasionally pulled up alongside her, and whenever he did, they could hear heated words being thrown back and forth between them.
With the entire town gathered at the bonfire, the streets lay in silence. Only the wind stirred up sounds here and there or a bird’s call could be heard in the distance. Gabriel felt reminded of a ghost town, and for a second he felt shivers run down his back. But what he felt was the excitement at a new adventure. A real one.
The setting sun behind them, they raced each other through the empty streets of Kenton Woods. And once again as the wind brushed over his face, pulling back his hair, Gabriel remembered Andril and Laran riding their horses across the lowlands of Candor. Only now, Gabriel really did feel the wind in his face and the sun on his back. He heard the rustle of leaves and the sound of their tires on the asphalt. The smell of smoke hung in the air and he still tasted on his tongue the bite of s’more he’d snagged from his grandfather. Gabriel looked at the others’ faces and smiled.
At the end of Oak Drive, they turned right onto Market Street. As the sign to Mrs. Evan’s bakery came into view, Jordan slowed down, sitting upright in the saddle. “There it is,” she said, pointing at a huge tree growing out of the sidewalk right by the store’s front door. The thick branches rose higher into the sky than the two-floor buildings lining the street. Coming to a halt right beneath a low-hanging branch, they lifted their heads and in the midst of the dense foliage found a birdhouse attached to the tree through a number of thin cables.
“Oh, don’t tell me,” Eddie moaned. “You think it’s up there, don’t you?”
Jordan rolled her eyes. “Don’t wet your pants, no one asked you to get it,” she said, eyes shifting from the low-hanging branch upward, calculating a route. Cat waited by her side.
“He has a problem with heights,” Liam whispered to Gabriel.
“Excuse me,” Eddie cut in, hands on his hips. “I don’t have a problem with heights; they have a problem with me.”
Liam grinned. “That means he tends to fall off anything higher than a chair.”
“Whatever,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “I think Jack should get it.”
Frowning, Jordan looked at her brother, who stood beside her glancing up at the tree. Then her gaze turned to Eddie. “Why?” she asked, the hint of a scowl on her face.
“Let it go, Jordan,” Liam said, stepping forward and raising his hands to stop her approach.
“No, seriously, why?” She sidestepped Liam and came to stand in front of Eddie.
Eddie just shrugged. “No reason.”
“Don’t go ballistic again!” Jack called, still looking upward. “You know damn well that I’m the best climber of us.”
Jordan spun around. “What? You think I can’t do this?” Her eyes narrowed into slits. Cat barked, eyes focused on Jordan.
Watching them with furrows creasing his forehead, Gabriel made a mental note to not make this girl angry.
“I didn’t say that, but—”
“Good, then give me a leg-up,” she said, lifting her left foot. “C’mon, we don’t have all day.”
Jack sighed, but without another word he bent down, linked his hands and when Jordan put her foot in, he lifted her up.
Grabbing hold of the low-hanging branch, she put her feet against the trunk of the tree and step by step pulled herself up. As she climbed onto the branch, she raised her head, scanning the branches above, and then moved on. In less than a minute Jordan reached the birdhouse.
“Wow, the roof opens!” she called down to them. Lifting the top, she peered inside. “There are about ten pieces of paper in here.”
“Only take one,” Jack called up. “We don’t want to screw this up for the others.”
“The others?” Gabriel whispered to Liam.
“You didn’t think we were the only ones in the game, did you?” Eddie cut in, keeping his eyes fixed on the people still on the ground, his right hand patting Cat’s head.
Gabriel shrugged. “Who else is there?”
“Only the entire school,” Liam said. “It’s very competitive. Usually people group together. No one has ever been able to solve a riddle alone.”
“And what is the goal?” Gabriel asked. “I mean what will the riddles lead us to?”
Liam shrugged. “We don’t know. No one’s ever found it.”
Hanging from the low-hanging branch, legs and hands wrapped around it, Jordan first let go with her legs and then with her hands. She dropped to the ground, knees bent, and landed on her feet. “See,” she said grinning, as she brushed bark off her hands. “Piece of cake.”
“What’s it say?” Jack asked, holding out a hand for the note.
Jordan took it from her pocket, but didn’t hand it to her brother. As she unfolded it, the others grouped around her.
I am never in one place alone
In summer I work the mill
In winter I am perfectly still
You can break me with but a stone
Yet you can do me no harm
By the home of mother bee
Below the great ash tree
Reach out with your arm.
“Any ideas?” Jordan asked, looking at them. For a moment, Gabriel felt her eyes linger on him. Slowly he shook his head.
“Negative,” Jack said, his eyes moving up and down the street. “We should retreat. Who knows, maybe another team is in the area, spying on us. We don’t want to lead them straight to the target.”
As they turned to their bikes, Gabriel looked at Liam, eyebrows raised.
“What?” Liam asked.
“Why does he talk like that?”
Liam laughed. “Oh, that?” He looked at Jack and Jordan. “Their dad’s military,” he explained. “Back in third grade, Eddie and Jack started this. I don’t really know why. One day they just started imitating their dads. By now, it seems pretty normal. You better get used to it.”
“What about you?” Gabriel asked. “You don’t imitate your dad?”
Again Liam laughed. “My dad’s a dentist. I don’t think that would work. Yours?”
Remembering his dad yelling into the phone at someone half-way around the world, Gabriel shook his head. “No.”
Liam nodded, a smile on his face. “Good. I was getti
ng tired of being the only normal kid in this group.” Getting on his bike, he headed after the others. “You coming?” he called over his shoulder.
A smile on his face, Gabriel got on his bike, quickly catching up with Liam.
Chapter 7 – Strange
Leaving their bikes by their parents’ parked cars, the group returned to the fire. After grabbing a burger and a soda, they found a more isolated spot in the dry grass and sat down. In the distance, Gabriel saw his grandparents chatting with Stan from the hardware store and others he hadn’t met yet. His grandparents stood, arms linked, every now and then smiling at each other. It was a peaceful picture and Gabriel felt calm inside.
“I can’t believe we actually found the second riddle,” Eddie said with a full mouth. “That’s so awesome.”
“Hey!” Jordan complained, glaring at him. “Say it, don’t spray it! I don’t need your food all over me, got it?” Eddie nodded, a grin on his face.
“You do this every year?” Gabriel asked, his voice barely loud enough for them to hear.
Liam nodded. “The seniors prepare the riddles for the rest of the students. Kind of like a good-bye present. It’s lots of fun, but also kind of frustrating. No one has ever found whatever it is they are hiding. I think the closest anyone ever got was one riddle short of the actual thing.”
Looking at them, Gabriel asked, “Then why do you do it? If you don’t even know what you’ll find.”
Eddie clutched a hand to his chest. “To prove ourselves worthy, of course.”
“You’re such a moron,” Jordan said with a smile on her face before she turned to Gabriel. “It’s exciting to see if you can do it. It’s a challenge.”
That, Gabriel understood.
Munching their burgers, they looked into the fire, still burning high, with millions of tiny sparks rising into the darkening sky. Cat came trotting over, a stick in her muzzle, and put it down by Jordan who picked it up and threw it across the meadow. Instantly, Cat jump up, racing after it.
Following the direction of her throw with his eyes, Gabriel saw lights in the distance. With the sun almost down, he could only make out the vague outline of a house, windows alight.
“What’s that place?” he asked, pointing to the lonely house on the fringe of the forest.
“That’s the House of Horrors,” Eddie said giggling.