To Be, or Not To Be
What am I good at? thought Sebastian, as he felt the water cover his head. Not holding my breath, unfortunately, and apparently not walking through doors. But I must be good at something. Celia was good at being strong and climbing, so her test had been a test of strength. As his lungs began to burn, he considered the question.
He was good at looking, he decided. It was one of the reasons he liked the movies—he always saw little details that everyone else missed. Before he gave up and filled his lungs with water, maybe he should look. Never mind that it was dark and that he was underwater, he would look. He was good at that.
Celia found Angus’s hand in the dark and pulled him and the floating bench toward her. “I’ve got you, Angus,” she said.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” moaned Angus.
“No,” said Celia firmly. “I promised Dad I would always protect you and I will.” She did her best to believe what she said.
Sebastian saw it almost immediately. There was something different in the wall a few feet to the left of the door—sort of a gauziness and a very slight glow. He made his way over to it and looked more closely. The wall in front of him looked less solid than the door or the wall the rest of the way round the room. He supposed there was no need to worry about bumping his head again. If this didn’t work, another knot on his forehead wouldn’t make any difference.
“Are you two OK?” said Juliet in the darkness.
“No. We’re not,” wailed Angus.
“We’re fine,” said Celia in as calm a voice as she could manage. “For now.”
Sebastian forced out what little air remained in his lungs and took a step forward, and then another step. He could feel the wall brushing around him as he walked. On the third step he reached out a hand and felt warmth. The fourth step brought him into a well-lit empty room filled with the most delicious air he had ever breathed.
Juliet could not see Sebastian disappear. She could not see anything, but she could feel her hands going numb. Worse, she could feel the ceiling pressing on her shoulders. At least she wouldn’t be alive to see what the world was like after Otto Bodkin became guardian of the Book of the Seven Spells. She thought about reaching out to Celia. It would be nice, she thought, to hold her hand at the last minute, when the water covered everything. But she must have floated away from Celia and Angus. She could not feel either one of them. Just before the water covered her ears, she thought she heard them whispering.
“It’s OK,” said Celia to Angus, squeezing his hand. “Sebastian has got this. Just try to stay calm. You’ll be able to hold your breath longer.”
“I don’t want to hold my breath,” said Angus, crying softly. Still he squeezed back on Celia’s hand when suddenly something pulled her down. Celia slipped past him and into the depths and he tried to hold on to the bench, but he couldn’t. Whatever had yanked Celia under the surface was pulling him, too. He opened his mouth to call out to Juliet, but it filled with water as he was sucked under.
When Sebastian had caught his breath, he turned to the door to open it, but there was no handle on this side either. How do I open a door, he wondered, without a handle or a lock or a doorknob? He thought for a moment about trying to burn the door with one of the torches mounted on the wall, but he didn’t think that would work fast enough—if you even could burn a door with a whole room full of water on one side of it. He had returned to what he did best … looking.
He had examined every inch of the door and discovered a tiny latch set into the wood in the top corner. It was so carefully disguised that even Sebastian did not see it until the third time he looked at that spot. Not sure what would happen, but with no other options, he had stuck a fingernail under the metal latch and pulled it open. Nothing happened. Nothing happened for just enough time for Sebastian to realize that if the door did open and an entire room full of water emptied through it, he might want to be standing a little further away. He stepped to the side as he heard the creaking of the door, followed by a sudden roar.
Angus held his breath, but he knew he couldn’t do it for long. Celia had been right; if he had stayed calm, he might survive a few more seconds. But what difference did that make? His lungs began to ache, and then it felt as if someone was hitting him, first on one side and then on another. He reached out his hands to strike back and found himself lying on the floor of a brightly lit room, gulping in fresh air, as a torrent of water flooded around him and disappeared into some hidden drain. Celia and Juliet lay next to him, and Sebastian stood over them, a wide smile on his face.
“Sorry it took me so long,” he said.
“What took you so long?” spluttered Celia. “What did you do?”
“He passed his test,” said Juliet, standing up and offering Angus a hand. “That’s what matters.”
“Once I walked through the wall,” said Sebastian casually, “I had to figure out how to get the door open, and that took a couple of minutes.”
“Once you walked through the wall?” said Celia, staggering to her feet. “Like that was the easy part.”
“In a way it was,” said Sebastian. “And I found out what I’m good at.”
“Walking through walls?” said Angus.
“No,” said Sebastian. “It turns out I’m good at looking.”
“I don’t care if you’re good at eating chocolate milkshakes and dancing the Hokey-Pokey, as long as you got us out of there,” said Juliet, clapping Sebastian on the back. For a moment they all stood in the middle of the room, pulse rates returning to normal, not thinking of Bodkins or spell books, just glad to be alive.
“Hey, why aren’t we back in the hall?” said Juliet at last. “Didn’t we come out the same door we went in?”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” said Angus, who had finally caught his breath. “Magic house!”
“OK,” said Celia. “Whose test is in this room of the magic house?”
“Mine,” said Angus.
“How do you know?” said Juliet. “It could be mine.”
“Look at the walls,” said Angus. On every wall of the room, from floor to ceiling, carved into the stone, were words. They were not carved in neat straight lines like the text of a book but were at all angles—as if a dictionary had exploded and left its contents splattered on the walls. “This is a test for a reader,” said Angus confidently, stepping to the middle of the room.
“But what’s the test?” whispered Juliet to Celia as they watched Angus scan the walls.
“No idea,” said Celia, “but at least it’s not flooding in here.”
“Just a little chilly,” said Sebastian.
“It’s your wet clothes,” said Celia.
“No,” said Sebastian shivering. “It was nice and warm a minute ago. It’s definitely getting colder.”
“There’s ice in my hair,” said Juliet.
“OK,” said Celia, “that means it’s getting cold fast.”
“Great,” said Juliet. “We don’t burn up or drown; we just freeze to death. I’m liking this house less and less all the time.”
“We should huddle together,” said Sebastian. “Keep each other warm.”
“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” said Juliet.
“I would if it keeps me alive,” said Sebastian, his teeth chattering.
“He’s right,” said Celia. “The more time we can give Angus the better.” She took Juliet’s hand and they walked stiffly over to Sebastian—their wet clothes had frozen, making movement awkward at best.
“Oh, I’m so cold,” said Sebastian. “I hate cold. I hate winter and snow and ice and this … I’ve never felt so cold.”
“But you live in Hedley Helm,” said Juliet. “It’s famous for its winters.”
“So, I’ve had plenty of experience hating cold,” said Sebastian.
“Come on,” said Celia, putting her arms around Juliet and Sebastian and pulling them together in an embrace. “We’ve all still got body heat.”
“What about Angus?” said Juliet, almost unable to get the words out.
Celia looked at her brother, standing in the middle of the room. His hair was coated with icicles and a white frost covered his jeans and shirt. His whole body shivered, but he still stared intently at the walls as he slowly turned to take in the entire room.
Even though Angus was her twin, Celia had always felt like his older sister—maybe because she had always been taller and stronger. She had never felt more protective of him than she did right now. She would never forgive herself if something happened to Angus.
“Any luck?” she whispered, but Angus held up a hand, clearly asking for quiet. “I guess we just let him work and hope for the best,” she sighed.
Angus tried to ignore the cold. He knew if the room kept getting colder, they would not survive long, but he pushed all of this, and the incredible pain in his shivering body, aside, and concentrated on the words. There had to be some pattern, some puzzle he could solve.
He noticed certain words repeated over and over, especially the word be. The cold was seeping into his mind and as his eyes watered his eyesight became as blurred as his thoughts. Tears froze on his cheeks, but still he could not understand what the words meant. His legs had gone numb and he knew he could not stand much longer but even the thought of sitting down could not form fully in his frozen mind. The longer words seemed to disappear and as his eyes dropped shut, he saw only that one word over and over: be.
Celia was just beginning to think that they needed to sit down if the others’ legs felt like hers, when Sebastian went limp in her arms.
“I think he passed out,” said Juliet.
“He’s still breathing,” said Celia. “Come on, help me lay him down.”
They lay Sebastian on the floor, and leaned over him, trying to warm him with their breath. His chest barely moved up and down as he took short, shallow breaths.
“He can’t last much longer,” said Celia, turning to Juliet just in time to see her, too, slip into unconsciousness and slide to the floor beside Sebastian.
Angus’s eyes snapped open. How did he not see it before? He had read a lot of books and he remembered a lot of what he read. He had worked hard to understand a play called Hamlet by William Shakespeare, which included a super famous speech—maybe the most famous speech ever. And there were the words of its first line repeated all over the wall—most of the words, anyway.
But there were other words on the wall, too. And when Angus mentally arranged them into something that made sense, it was easy to see the sobering message. The speech that began with that well-known line was all about whether Hamlet was going to live or die. It opened with the words, “To be, or not to be.” But the words Angus unscrambled on the wall started with a slightly different line:
Who is to be, or not to be?
You may select but only three,
To see the vault and so to be;
Those left behind are not to be.
It seemed pretty clear—Angus had to choose three people who could go on to the vault. Whomever he did not pick, would stay behind and freeze to death. And if he didn’t pick right away, it would be too late. He did not hesitate an instant, but with what little breath he had left he called out: “I select Juliet, Celia, and Sebastian.”