“Can you at least try to stay on track, Shells? Carl with the silent h speaks Latin!”
“Actually, I don’t,” Carl responded. “A few teachers have even questioned whether I speak English.”
“Then how do you know what they’re saying?” Jonathan asked.
“Harold left his Latin notes on the kitchen counter and I saw ‘In darkness lies power’ scribbled underneath Occulta potentia in umbra.”
“So you don’t speak Latin?” Shelley clarified.
“No.”
“Is it just me or are you a little relieved?” Shelley asked Jonathan.
“When an unexceptional turns out to be exceptional, it rocks the boat… the poorly made, almost-sinking boat… that is our lives.…” Jonathan trailed off.
“Occulta potentia in umbra. Occulta potentia in umbra.”
“Don’t they know any other songs?” Shelley huffed. “Who just sings the same line over and over again?”
Though emotionless and monotone, the voices weighed heavily on Jonathan and Shelley.
They sensed that like an iceberg in the sea, a great deal lurked beneath the surface. And it wasn’t good. After all, what kind of people dressed in cloaks and masks? And lived secluded behind a wall, cut off from society, the very society they were so determined to control? They’re the people who rule the world, Hammett had said. And though frightening, it was a difficult concept to grasp. Was it really possible that the fifty or so people in the garden were orchestrating changes in the stock market, Supreme Court judge appointments, scientific research—all to benefit their own interests?
“If anything goes wrong, they’re going to roast us… like one of those chickens on a stick you see at the grocery store,” Shelley said, peering down at the garden.
Jonathan nodded, unable to speak, terrified that if he did, something cowardly just might escape his lips. Let’s get out of here! My parents will figure something out.… They never have before, but there’s always a first, he imagined himself wailing hysterically. And so Jonathan remained silent, impatiently waiting for his cowardice to pass. He would never be able to live with himself if he just up and left. For he was not only a son trying to save his parents but an operative on a mission. That was the Jonathan Murray he had become, the Jonathan Murray he was proud to be.
And so when the crippling fear finally loosened its grasp, Jonathan turned to Shelley and said, “Hand me the binoculars.”
Shelley nodded and then turned to Carl. “Hand me the binoculars.”
“What binoculars?” Carl responded.
Shelley turned to Jonathan and repeated, “What binoculars?”
“The ones I handed you on the plane and told you to bring!” Jonathan huffed.
Shelley nodded. “Oh, those binoculars.”
“Yes, Shells, those binoculars. Where are they?”
Shelley tilted her head and mumbled, “Do you want the truth?”
“Why do you ask questions like that? Has anyone ever responded, No, lie to me?”
“Actually, they have.… Okay, they haven’t, but one day, someone is going to say that, so it’s actually not a lie, it’s a premature truth.…” Shelley rambled.
“Shells, where are the binoculars?”
“On the bench… on the plane…” Shelley admitted sheepishly.
“The plan won’t work without binoculars; we’re too far away to see the wax on the robes,” Jonathan said as he dropped his face into his hands.
“Did you have this plan before—is that why you wanted me to bring the binoculars?” Shelley asked, clearly shocked by Jonathan’s foresight.
“No, of course not! I just told you to bring them because that’s what spies do in movies. They dress well and they bring binoculars.”
“Have you guys thought about renaming yourselves something a bit more accurate, like the League of Children with Really Bad Ideas, or the League of Children Who Will Probably Get You Killed?” Carl suggested.
“Didn’t your mother teach you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you should sew your lips shut, and if you don’t have a needle and thread, you should use glue, and if you don’t have glue, you should use tape, and if you don’t have tape, you should use stickers, and if you don’t have stickers—”
“He gets the idea; we all do,” Jonathan interrupted before once again focusing on the figures marching around the bonfire. “We’re going to have to go down there… get close enough to see the wax on the robes.”
“You want to go down there? With the psychos?” Carl asked.
“I say we tie some sheets together and rappel down. Sort of like when Rapunzel used her hair to help the prince rescue her,” Shelley said before pausing. “I bet her hair was really dirty. How could anyone keep that much hair clean? It’s impossible! Imagine if she got lice? She’d never get rid of them.… She’d be scratching her scalp for eternity.”
Jonathan stared at Shelley and shook his head. “We’re not using sheets to rappel down the side of the castle; someone will see us.”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I joined marching band?” Shelley asked, raising her eyebrows for effect.
“You’re in marching band?” Jonathan asked incredulously.
“I tried out, but unfortunately I was rejected due to my inability to play an instrument. But I really wanted to join and you know how I hate to give up on a dream. So one day I just showed up in the outfit and started marching with them. I didn’t even have an instrument. No one noticed a thing.”
Jonathan grinned. “If there’s one thing an unexceptional does well, it’s hiding in plain sight.”
NOVEMBER 1, 8:25 P.M. ENTRY HALL. THE ORDER OF MERIUM
“Johno?” Shelley said through the red mask, the black velvet cloak covering her from head to toe. “Do I look okay?”
“You look like a creepy psycho, which just so happens to be what we’re going for.”
“Is this going to work?” Shelley wondered aloud.
“Probably not,” Carl answered. “Which is why I’ll be hiding in the bushes.”
“Thanks for the support, Charl,” Shelley droned sarcastically as Jonathan slowly cracked open the heavy wooden door to the garden.
The cloaked figures marched in near-perfect unison around the fire. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
“So we just walk up and act like we belong?” Jonathan said hesitantly.
“Come on, Johno! Don’t say it like it’s a question; it’s our plan!”
“You’re right. We need to have confidence or it won’t work. People believe what we tell them to believe… and we are going to silently tell them, ‘We are just like you.’”
“Good luck with that,” Carl said as he slipped past them into the garden.
NOVEMBER 1, 9:03 P.M. GARDEN. THE ORDER OF MERIUM
Walking slowly toward the figures, Shelley suddenly felt the urge to urinate. Why didn’t anyone teach spies to pee before embarking on a mission? How come we never saw James Bond taking care of life’s many boring necessities like grocery shopping, paying taxes, and using the bathroom?
“Occulta potentia in umbra,” Jonathan and Shelley chanted beneath their deformed red masks as they walked toward the group marching around the fire.
Jonathan, the first to approach, knew that if he paused too long, he would draw attention. And so he quickly pushed into the circle. A few seconds after which, Shelley followed suit. Round and round they went, chanting, “Occulta potentia in umbra.” And though dizzying, it allowed them time to scan for the wax drippings.
“Claudicatis!” a voice called into the night. “Claudicatis!”
What does that mean? Shelley thought as the group came to a sudden halt. Oh no, what now? What if they break into a routine, like one of those choreographed dances she watched on YouTube? Jonathan will never be able to keep up; he can barely tap his toe, let alone follow dance moves on the fly. Speaking of Jonathan, where was he? Why hadn’t they thought about this? There was no way to identify eac
h other! They now appeared exactly like all the others! Look for the girl with the wax drippings, Shelley thought. Find her and you’ll find Jonathan. But what if the girl had noticed the wax and picked it off? Or if she changed cloaks? Ugh, Carl was right, unexceptionals come up with the worst plans!
Staring off into space, overwhelmed by the disaster they had already made of their plan, Shelley suddenly focused in on a clump of wax dribbled along the hem of a cloak two people ahead of her.
And so Shelley retracted her negative thoughts and welcomed a surge of confidence. Yes, they were unexceptionals. And yes, their plans left more than a little to be desired, but that was partly why they worked. They were simple. And people tended to overlook simple.
A bell sounded, prompting the cloaked figures to disperse, scattering across the grounds.
Follow the wax, Shelley told herself. Don’t lose the wax. Moving through the garden, weaving in and out of trees, Shelley quietly trailed the girl. But it wasn’t easy. The soggy grass and newly fallen leaves created sounds, sounds that Shelley worried might draw the attention of the girl she knew as Glenda.
Crinkle. Swish. Crunch. Swish. Crinkle.
The sounds suddenly grew louder; the soft crunch of the leaves and swish of the grass beneath her feet had amplified. Could it be that someone was walking behind Shelley? Was it Jonathan? Or was it another one of the crazies? But before Shelley could even finish her thought, a hot, searing pain flashed through her head, bringing her to her knees.
Kneeling beside Shelley’s limp body, the figure dropped the branch and lifted her mask.
“Oh, Shells, I’m so sorry.…”
Jonathan had knocked his partner unconscious in a case of mistaken identity. He had momentarily lost sight of Glenda while trailing her in the garden. And then, when a cloaked figure reappeared before him, he simply assumed that it was her. But it had been Shelley, his partner, who now lay unconscious at his feet while Glenda sat on a bench in the distance. He couldn’t undo what he had done to Shelley, but at the very least he could capture the right target, even if it was on the second try. In a swift, almost ballet-like leap, Jonathan lunged toward Glenda, slamming a heavy branch against her back, knocking her to the ground.
Guilty. That was the first sensation that swept through him. Maybe Glenda was a nice person deep down? Maybe she had gotten caught up in the Order of Merium by accident? Maybe he could have subdued her in a different manner? Perhaps a more delicate, friendly manner? Just then Glenda swung her right leg, straight as a board, into the back of Jonathan’s knees. Like a pin hit with a bowling ball, Jonathan came crashing down. Wet slivers of grass crept into his mouth as he landed face-first. What happened? Jonathan thought as Glenda flipped him over and pinned him down. He tried to move, but it was no use. She was strong and, more to the point, he wasn’t.
Picking up a nearby stick, Glenda pushed it lightly down on his throat.
“Who are you?”
“Me?” Jonathan said, desperately trying to buy some time so he could formulate a plan, even a bad plan. At that point he just needed something, anything, to cling to.
“Yes, you,” Glenda answered, pressing down on the stick, cutting off his air supply.
“Stop, please, stop!”
“I’m going to ask you one more time: Who are you?”
“Jerry…”
If I’m going down, Jonathan thought, I’m going down strong.
“Jerry what?”
“Jerry… Berry.”
“Jerry Berry?” Glenda repeated.
No one has a rhyming name! That’s not a real thing! Come on, do better, Jonathan thought.
“My parents were really into… humiliating their children… hence my rhyming name.”
“Do you know what we do to intruders here at the Order of Merium?”
“Nothing good, I’m guessing,” Jonathan answered as Glenda once again pushed down on the stick.
“We make them disappear.”
Disappear, Jonathan said to himself. That’s just another word for murder.
“But only after we’ve found out every last piece of information they know.”
Creak. Crinkle. Crunch.
The others were coming.…
NOVEMBER 1, 10:06 P.M. GARDEN. THE ORDER OF MERIUM
Creak. Crinkle. Creak.
“Shelley!” Jonathan hollered hoarsely, the branch pushing down on his airway.
But Shelley didn’t hear him. She was a lump of flesh on the ground, eerily still except for the nearly imperceptible rise and fall of her chest. Jonathan had knocked out his own partner by accident and now Glenda, his intended target, was squeezing the last drops of life from him. Shame engulfed him, seizing every cell in his body. Never before had he felt such disgust and disappointment in himself.
Creak. Crinkle. Creak.
Carmen and Mickey Murray’s faces flashed through Jonathan’s mind. Not only were they going to languish in prison, they would soon learn that their son was the world’s worst spy. This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out! Jonathan and Shelley had once been successful spies. They had saved the vice president of the United States and the population of England! And yet they couldn’t save the Murrays. Pinned down, fighting for each breath, Jonathan felt himself drifting away. Hazy. Confused. Physically depleted. The lack of oxygen propelling him further and further from this world.
Creak. Crack. Snap.
“Ahhhh!!!!!” a voice screeched as the sound of a branch breaking brought Jonathan back to the moment.
Thump!
Trapped beneath Glenda’s velvet-clad body, Jonathan struggled to breathe. Hot and sweating, he pushed against her limp frame to no avail. “Help!” he screamed, his voice muffled. Then he paused and wondered, Who am I calling out to if Shelley can’t hear me? Not the other members of the Order of Merium! Please wake up, Shelley. For even if she couldn’t save him, she could save herself.
“Ugh,” Jonathan groaned as his temples throbbed and his legs writhed in pain. He hadn’t eaten anything in almost twelve hours. He felt drained, too drained to fight. He closed his eyes and prepared for the darkness to take him. Where? He didn’t know, but surely anywhere was better than here. Here where he’d failed both his parents and his partner.
Air rushed in as Glenda’s body flopped to the side. And though frail, Jonathan felt a sense of calm take hold. Shelley must have woken up. She had rescued him. It felt like a fairy tale, the prince coming to wake Sleeping Beauty, only in this case Shelley was the prince.
Focusing on the face peering down at him, Jonathan suddenly recoiled. “Ahhh!”
“Hey, it’s me, Carl, with the silent h.”
“Where’s Shelley?”
“She’s making her way over here… she’s still a little wobbly.”
Jonathan grabbed his neck as he sat up. “What happened?”
“You hit Shelley on the head. Then you tried to take down Glenda. But she had you on your back faster than you can say… pretty much anything… and then she was suffocating you with a branch, or at least it looked that way from the tree.”
“You were in the tree?” Jonathan asked. “You’re what fell on us?”
Carl smiled. “Yeah, it worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.”
“You jumped onto Glenda to save me?”
Carl shook his head. “Not exactly… The branch broke.”
“So you were just sitting there watching her suffocate me?”
“Now that you say it like that… it sounds really bad… maybe even criminal.”
Jonathan sighed. What was the point of even discussing this with Carl?
“I wanted to help, really I did… but somehow it just didn’t happen… and then the branch broke, beating me to it.…”
“Johno,” Shelley said as she hobbled toward them. “You got Glenda? Good! You have no idea how hard she hit me.”
“About that…” Jonathan began.
“Let’s tie her up before she wakes,” Shelley suggested. “There’s a shed
just past these trees. We can use it to interrogate her.”
“Shells, I’m sorry.…” Jonathan said as he watched her press her hand to the large welt on the back of her head.
“For what?”
Tell her, Jonathan, the boy screamed to himself. But he couldn’t. Not now, not with so much still on the line. Shelley needed to have faith in him if they were to stand a chance of making it out alive. “I’m sorry I… I don’t have any aspirin.”
“You don’t look so good, Johno,” Shelley said as she stepped closer. “Sort of like an elderly squirrel who’s about to lie down and die.”
NOVEMBER 1, 11:02 P.M. SHED. THE ORDER OF MERIUM
“Water… water… I need… water,” Glenda whispered as she slowly roused to consciousness. Hands and feet tied together with twine, her mask removed, she looked up to find two unfamiliar faces staring back at her.
“I need water,” Glenda said again.
“We don’t have any.… We’re in a garden shed, in case you haven’t noticed,” Shelley responded, motioning to their surroundings.
“The Order does not take kindly to intruders.”
Jonathan cleared his throat, his voice still hoarse. “I think you’ve made that point clear. But now, I think it’s time to clear up another matter. So what do you say we have a little chat?”
“I haven’t much of a choice,” Glenda responded as she looked down at the twine binding her hands and legs.
Shelley stepped forward, pushed up her glasses, and announced, “The name’s Shelley. Shelley Brown… Darn it! I wasn’t supposed to use my real name. I’m going to need to retract that statement and start over as Samantha Powers.”
“Shelley Brown…” Glenda repeated.
“I retracted that statement! My name is Samantha Powers!”
“Shells, she’s going to know who we are soon enough,” Jonathan said before turning toward Glenda. “Do I look familiar?”
“Should you?”
“I guess not since I don’t really look like either of my parents,” Jonathan muttered before leaning in, staring straight into Glenda’s eyes. “The point is, you know my parents. Carmen and Mickey Murray?”