Chapter Eighteen
All In
“Well? What is it?” Sara demanded anxiously. “What are they planning?”
Evelyn looked squarely at the girls, and her expression grew grim. “There is… something here that they would like to, ah… power up, so to speak… but they’ve been lacking the energy to properly do so.”
“It’s in the museum?” Maria asked.
“No,” Evelyn corrected. “Not in the museum. Under it.”
“How is that possible?” Sara asked.
“Many things are not as they seem upon first inspection, and this building is no exception. Though it is undoubtedly a fine museum with many wondrous exhibits, that it is not this building’s primary purpose. It serves as a base of operations for the Black Hats, but even before that came to be, it was built to conceal the thing beneath it.”
“The thing beneath it? Well?” Maria demanded. She was waving her arms around, leaning forward, her eyes bulging with anticipation. The suspense was killing her! “What is it? What is this museum on top of?”
“Pan Gu,” Evelyn said, in a voice that was filled with awe. “It sits atop Pan Gu.”
At this declaration, the sisters groaned with disappointment and frustration.
“You’re not particularly good at clarifying things, did you know that?” Sara asked. “We still don’t know what the heck a Pan Gu is.”
Evelyn hesitated. “It’s best if I show you. Otherwise, I fear you may not even believe me.”
“Oh, you might be surprised,” Maria told her. “We’ve seen some pretty darned weird stuff the past couple of weeks.”
At this, Evelyn laughed, displaying her boisterous, charismatic attitude. “You were able to foil the efforts of the Black Hats previously, and cause them enough of a setback to have them mark you as enemies. As such, I have no doubt that you are exceptionally prepared for such daunting challenges as those which currently face us. But before we go any further, I must ask you – are you sure you wish to proceed with this? Events have escalated rather quickly, I realize. But you must understand, this is a matter most urgent, and the ramifications will extend to points unknown, if the Black Hats are able to further their plans.”
Maria and Sara locked eyes with one another as they considered what lay before them, engaging in the nearly telepathic bond that existed between sisters who had been through so much together, and learned to rely upon one another so thoroughly. Without so much as speaking, they knew that they were on the same page, and they nodded in agreement.
“We’ll help you,” Sara said.
“Jasper has done too much to hurt our town and our friends,” Maria added. “Whatever idiotic plan he and his fellow doorknobs have cooked up, it needs to be stopped!”
“Excellent!” Evelyn exclaimed. “With my recent act of betrayal against the Black Hats, I’ll need all the help I can get. I’m sure you two will prove most resourceful, given the amount of energy they’ve spent on ensuring they can exact their vengeance upon you.”
Spinning to face the wall of portraits, she reached one hand toward the painting of her famous ancestor. With an index finger, she pressed against the upper right corner of the frame.
An audible click was heard, and one side of the painting cleanly swung away from the wall, while the other remained firmly secured. The portrait was on hinges, and it had been cleverly designed to open like a door, revealing a hidden safe that had been built into the wall behind it.
“This won’t take but a moment, and then we’ll be on our way,” Evelyn promised.
“On our way to where, exactly?” Sara whispered to her sister, but the only response she received was a shrug and an expression of bafflement.
The curator turned her back on the sisters, directing her attention to the safe. With confident motions that had clearly been instilled from frequent repetition, she began spinning the safe’s heavy-duty dial this way and that. After inputting several numbers of the combination, the safe swung open with a cuh-chunk.
Evelyn quickly strode from the safe to her desk, her heels clicking sharply against the floorboards. With the fast, efficient motions of an experienced administrator, she began gathering the boatloads of papers and files that were spread across her desk. When they were safely bundled in her arms, she grabbed the map – the one with the intriguing array of X-marks inscribed upon its surface – and rolled it into a tight cylinder.
She was about to turn away from the desk, but with a final afterthought, she lifted Jasper’s corncob pipe from where it lay, near the globe in the corner. She eyed it disdainfully, holding it carefully with two fingers at a prudent distance from her body. The stacks of important documents were held tight against her chest with one arm, and the other was extended, keeping the foul pipe as far from herself as possible.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” she asked the girls.
“Not to mention ridiculous,” Maria added with a giggle. “He is a first rate doorknob, after all.”
“And that’s the truth,” Evelyn said, as she tossed the pipe into a wastebasket beside her desk.
The sisters could not help but chortle at the thought of what Jasper’s reaction would have been, should he have witnessed the disposal of his precious pipe in such an unceremonious manner. Perhaps the only thing that would have affected him more aversely would have been to send his mahogany broom through the blade of a buzz saw.
With the disposal of the pipe having been completed, Evelyn strode over to the safe and began to stuff the items from her desk inside. Her movements were hasty, and in a few seconds, she had put everything within the hidden compartment. She closed its door and spun the dial, scrambling the combination and engaging the locking mechanism.
Finally, she returned the painting of Ferdinand Magellan to its original position, swinging it until it had returned to lie flat against the wall, blending in with the other portraits. Once it was in place, it was impossible to tell that anything was concealed behind it, much less a safe containing a myriad of mysterious documents.
“Wait!” Maria exclaimed. Belatedly, she realized they had missed their chance to get a closer look at the interesting map. “What were all those documents about? And that map! What were all those X-marks for?”
“My, you’re full of questions, aren’t you? I very much appreciate an inquisitive mind, but unfortunately, there’s no time to tell you everything right at the moment,” Evelyn said. “But I assure you that you needn’t worry yourselves about such things just now. We have far more pressing matters, if my suspicions prove to be well founded.”
She marched away from the paintings, coming to face the wall of bookshelves behind her desk. With a well-practiced motion, she reached her hand toward a single volume, among the countless that stood before her. It was at about the level of her waist, and near the right hand side of shelving. As her fingers came to rest upon it, the sisters had a brief moment to read the title: Travels, by Marco Polo.
Without removing the book from the shelf, Evelyn gripped it by the spine and tilted it back. At once, there was a low, whirring noise, and one of the many bookcases began to recede. It moved so smoothly, its design had clearly been crafted with the utmost attention to detail, and with an appreciation of fine mechanical operation.
As the bookcase continued to withdraw, the thing that it had been concealing was revealed: a passageway. This sight brought appreciative oohs and ahs from the sisters. How many hidden aspects were there to this office, they wondered? Over the course of only a few minutes, they had witnessed a trapdoor, a safe, and a passageway, all of which had been concealed to the unassuming eye.
From what they could see, the passageway was illuminated by soft, blue lights, and there came from within a slight draft of cool wind. Its walls were constructed from what looked to be brushed aluminum or a similar material, creating a high tech appearance, which contrasted with the ancient items that the museum was home to. What could possibly be within?
“All right, then,” Evelyn sa
id. Her voice had grown quiet and thoughtful, as if she were reflecting a great deal on what lay before her. She stared into the waiting passageway, lost in contemplation. Almost to herself, she murmured, “I’ve feared what these fools might be up to for a long time. No longer can I remain hidden among their ranks. I must summon my courage and dare to face them.”
Maria and Sara exchanged a glance with one another, their eyebrows raised in curiosity. It once more crossed their minds that they were approaching this situation with what might be deemed slightly less caution than that which was prudent. They had very little idea of what they were getting themselves into, other than the fact that it pertained to Jasper’s nefarious doings, and the dark machinations of the unseemly Black Hats.
But proceed, they would. Their curiosity was simply too strong, their appetite for adventure too powerful. They would not let such an unusual opportunity pass them by. Nor would they permit the deeds of the Black Hats to go unchecked, not if they had any say in the matter. They had seen what Jasper and Ebenezer were capable of, and if they were even now plotting more evildoings, it was up to the Beans to intervene.
Plus… how would Neil and Jack ever let them live it down, if they were to pass up such a strange and wonderful chance that had fallen into their laps? They briefly clasped one another’s hand for support, and the act of that simple gesture lent them courage and determination.
Evelyn still stood before the open doorway of the passageway, gazing within, contemplating what awaited her, both physically and emotionally. She engaged in a deep inhalation, and as her lungs filled with air, her shoulders squared, and her voice took on the confident tone that the sisters had come to recognize in their short time of knowing her. “Let’s begin.”
“We’re with you,” Sara said. Her sister stood beside her, and they nodded their heads in agreement and support. “As you say, Ms. Magellan – let’s begin, shall we?”