Boston, MA
“Are you sure that’s what we were supposed to find?” Dream asked Eula.
“Finding a key stapled to a shelf directly under a bag of brown sugar is weird,” Trudi said. “I think we have to assume it’s something of interest.”
“Okay,” Dream said. “What do we do with it?”
“Go to the next place on the map,” Trudi said. “I think you’re right that avow is referring to the altar.”
“That might be a tricky place to check out,” Eula said. “I doubt they let tourists poke around the pulpit.”
“I’ll do it. You guys keep watch.”
Eula followed. “The usual signal?”
“Yep.”
They headed back through the Bigelow Courtyard toward the church. They walked around and went in the front of the church, through the vestibule, and into the main worship hall. Trudi had to force herself not to get distracted by all the history—the woodwork, the two-story curved ceiling, the original-looking hymnals, the box pews that were sectioned-off seating for each family.
At the front of the church was a raised pulpit and an altar blocked off by a low, white banister. Trudi walked at a casual pace and pretended to look around, but really she was watching the tour groups. She didn’t see anyone who looked like an employee or security.
Without hesitation, she stepped over the low banister, as if she had every right to do so. Dream and Eula stayed by the first row of box pews. Above the altar was a painting of Jesus. I promise I’m not stealing, or rather, I’m doing this for good reason. Please forgive me. Trudi knelt down in front of the altar, a table covered in a long, intricate cloth. She lifted the fabric and let it fall down onto her head. It smelled a little musty.
The table was more than just a table—it was a cabinet with a locked door.
Coughing sounds, loud and obnoxious, interrupted Trudi’s thoughts. Eula was talented at being obnoxious when she really wanted to be.
Trudi shoved the little gold key that Eula had found into the keyhole. The lock clicked, and the door opened. Please be some part of the missing art, enough to win Dream his freedom. Inside the cabinet was a small box.
“Are you all right?” came a voice from several feet behind her.
Dream said, “I think she’s having a reaction to something.”
Trudi grabbed the little box, closed the cabinet door, and let the fabric fall back into place.
“A reaction to what? Does she have any allergies?” It was a woman in an early American dress, complete with a bonnet.
“I don’t know,” Dream said.
Eula continued to cough dramatically. She rested her hands on the woman’s shoulders, as if she couldn’t take it anymore and couldn’t hold herself upright. She coughed in her face. The woman raised her chin and turned her head to the side.
Trudi stepped back over the railing and walked around the woman to Eula. She patted Eula on the back. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
The woman stepped back from Eula with a disgusted look on her face.
Trudi rubbed Eula’s back, and Eula’s coughing started to quiet.
“Better?” Trudi asked.
Eula coughed one more time and nodded.
“Thank you so much,” Trudi said to the woman. Then she turned back to Eula. “Come on, sweetie. I’ll take care of you.” She guided her away, back down the narrower aisle under the balcony. Dream followed, still moving slowly.
Back outside in front of the church, Eula asked, “What did you find?” Her voice was raspy.
“I have a feeling we aren’t going to like it.” Trudi opened the little box in her hand.
Dream’s posture slackened, and Eula sighed.
Trudi took a little gold key out of the box.
“Okay,” Trudi said. “What’s the next clue?”
“The third one was roar,” Dream said.
“What’s loud in a church?” Eula asked.
“Other than obnoxious tourists who cough in your face?” Trudi said. “Nice touch, by the way.”
Eula gave a curtsy. “We aim to please, m’lady.”
“That was the signal?” Dream asked.
“More like a warning alarm and distraction all in one this time.” Eula rubbed her throat.
“I’ll get you some ice cream,” Trudi said.
“To go with my birthday present.” Eula looked around at the church and the other buildings in the area, offices to the left of the church and a gift shop to the right. “It doesn’t have to be related to the original buildings or even the original purposes of the church, right? Maybe something in the gift shop? An annoyingly loud toy or something?”
“Maybe,” Trudi said. Then she looked at Dream. “What do you think?”
Dream looked over at the gift shop. “I don’t know. I think . . . Paddy would have wanted it to be something historic.”
“But the candy shop wasn’t original to the site, was it?” Eula asked.
“But it was still historic,” Dream said. “Chocolate made the way it was in the 1700s.”
Eula nodded. “Got it.”
A tour group came through, and Trudi, Eula, and Dream shifted out of the way.
“How many stories is the steeple?” someone in the tour group asked. “It looks pretty tall. No wonder they used this as the place for the lantern signal.”
“Actually,” the tour guide said, “this is not the original steeple. It’s been destroyed and rebuilt twice. In 1804 and 1954, first by snow and then by a hurricane.”
“Can we go up there?”
“Not in today’s tour, but I’ll let you in on a secret. One of the bells has an inscription you wouldn’t guess.”
The crowd waited.
“It says, ‘We are the first ring of bells cast for the British Empire in North America, AR 1744.’”
“The British Empire?” someone asked.
“It’s now an American landmark,” the guide said, “but remember this whole area was originally under British rule.”
Both Eula and Dream raised their eyebrows at the same time. Trudi almost laughed.
She walked over to the tour group. “Why’re there more than one bell?” she asked the tour guide.
“They’re change-ringing bells. Each one has a different pitch.”
Eula came up next to Trudi and asked the guide, “What’re change-ringing bells? What’s that sound like?”
“Have you ever watched the beginning of The Hunchback of Notre Dame?” the guide asked.
“Like the Disney movie from the nineties?”
“You were probably very little.”
Eula suppressed a smile. “Wasn’t born yet when the movie came out.”
Trudi groaned. “Oh my goodness, I feel old.”
Eula laughed. “Sorry, Boss.” She turned back to the tour guide. “I remember the bells in the movie, though. It was a bunch of different bells, kind of a layered sound.”
“And they’re on a different kind of system—wheel mechanisms rather than rope and lever. Basically, instead of the bells and the sound they make being pointed down, they are pointed sideways when the bell actually tolls. It makes the sound travel farther.”
Someone else asked a question about the vestibule, and the tour guide talked about it as he led the group into the church.
“That’s the roar,” Trudi said to Eula and Dream.
Eula looked up at the steeple high above them, then at the tour group entering the church. “Let’s try to slide past them.”
“I saw stairs in the corner,” Dream said. “Inside the vestibule.”
Trudi led the way into the church. The tour group was in the vestibule, but the tour guide was just inside the doors, just out of sight from the stairs. Trudi edged behind the tour group. Eula followed. A few steps up, Trudi looked back. Dream was still with the tour group. He appeared to be trapped between two large men. One of them must’ve stepped back into the way before Dream could slide past. He mouthed the word go to Trudi.
Trudi hesitated. It might not be wise to leave Dream alone, but the tour seemed to be focused on the guide—good opportunity to slip up the stairs unnoticed. Plus, Dream probably couldn’t make it up the stairs right now, at least not quickly. Trudi turned and headed up. This area was definitely not built for the public. The rest of the church interior was painted bright white; these stairs were raw wood surrounded by raw brick walls.
“How much you wanna bet these stairs don’t meet modern building code,” Eula said.
“Probably not.”
Finally, they made it to a room with ropes, partially covered in red-and-black-striped sleeves, swagging from one spot in the ceiling out in all directions.
“These must be how they ring the bells,” Trudi said.
“What do you think,” Eula said, “key hiding in here or up with the bells?”
“You take a look around here, and I’ll keep going up and see what I find.”
The passage up to the bells was even narrower, and the stairs were only that in a very loose sense of the word. Each tread was different from the last. She made it up to a small platform where she could see all the bells, most of which were positioned with the open end of the bell up and the base attached to wooden wheels. Trudi leaned carefully on the railing and stood on her toes to survey the area.
She assumed she was looking for another gold key. It couldn’t be inside one of the upturned bells. The tour guide had said the bells turned all the way sideways when they were rung, so the key would fall out. Surely, Paddy would’ve accounted for that.
Okay, she thought, whatever he did, he likely didn’t have any better access than I do right now. She guessed it would be out of sight but not all that difficult to reach, and he would have had to have been able to secure it in place pretty quickly and easily.
Maybe he taped it to a bell? No, it would’ve fallen off when the bells were rung. Then she thought maybe he’d taped it to the wood structure holding the bells. But tape wouldn’t stick very well to wood, not well enough to be sure it would stick for a prolonged period of time, especially when the bells were rung and vibrated through the wood structure. No, Paddy had proven to be smarter than that.
She looked all around, even behind her at the brick wall.
Okay, the clue was roar. It had to be close to the bells themselves but probably not actually on a bell. She focused on the biggest bell, the one right in front of her and one of only a few with the open end down. It was hanging from metal straps attached to a thick piece of wood. She reached over and felt the far side of the wood support. Nothing but splinters. Then she knelt down, braced herself on the wood framing, precariously leaning over the opening for the bell, and felt the underside and back of the wood support. Nothing to the left of the bell. She pushed herself back, her weight fully on the platform, and shifted over to the right of the bell.
When she felt a small piece of metal, she smiled. It felt like a key, but it seemed to be secured by . . . It was a staple, one of those huge industrial ones that wasn’t coming out easily. As she felt more, she realized the key was attached to the shackle of a tiny padlock, like you’d find on luggage, and the lock was secured to the wood with the staple. She had to unlock it to get the key off.
Paddy must have been taller than I am. She was barely reaching it, and now she had to use the key they’d found in the altar to open the tiny lock. She couldn’t do it in this position. She pushed herself back onto the platform and reassessed.
All right, Tru-Bear, time for that black-belt balance of yours. Under the railing, she carefully crawled with her hands onto the side wood framing. She pushed herself from her knees to her feet but crouched under the railing, and she pushed herself forward until she could flip around and land her backside on the wood framing. More like half of one cheek.
She was holding the railing to help keep her balance, but she needed both hands to open the lock and take the key. With the ball of one foot on the platform for balance and the other foot dangling in the air, she leaned over the bell. She fished the key from the altar out of her pocket, held the lock in one hand, and inserted the key with the other. She had to grip everything just right or else when the lock opened, the new key would fall down between the bells. They’d never find it. She turned the key in the lock.
“Whoa.” The lock popped open, and she almost dropped the new key. She managed to shove both keys into her pocket.
Now to get down from this thing without falling and dying.
Slowly, she scooted closer until she could reach the railing, then she threw her legs over and hopped down onto the platform.
She huffed in relief and then started carefully down the crazy steps.
Eula looked up from her search and grinned when Trudi held up the key—well, one of them.
Footsteps.
Trudi pocketed the key.
A middle-aged man in work pants walked up into the bell-ringer chamber. “Who are you? What’re you doing up here?”