CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Tess  

Tess had been in trouble before. When she and Theo were two and counted how many things they could flush down the toilet, which included several stuffed animals, seventy-nine cents in pennies, and their dad’s underwear. When she and Theo were three and a half, got onto their dad’s computer, and ordered more than six hundred dollars’ worth of Star Wars Lego sets and a whole bunch of lightsabers. When she and Theo were five, woke up before their parents one Sunday morning, and took themselves out for brunch. In Brooklyn. (As it turned out, you couldn’t pay for Belgian waffles with Monopoly money.)

But Tess had never been in this kind of trouble. The kind of trouble that makes your parents so upset that they can’t even speak. The kind of trouble that means your parents have a hard time being in the same car or the same room or the same country as you without shaking their heads or even tearing up. The kind of trouble that means you could be spending the next few years of your life, maybe the rest of your life, trying not to disappoint them again, even though you’re sad and angry and frustrated that they were so disappointed in the first place.

During an interview at the police station, they had been interrupted by the arrival of one Samuel Deerfoot, the Seneca lawyer they’d just met. Though Sam’s specialty was treaties, Jaime had called him for help, and miraculously, he had agreed. After Sam spoke with the police, Jaime and the twins were released into their parents’ custody with a warning not to break into places they didn’t belong. Darnell Slant and company, who arrived at the station with a team of lawyers, also got a warning, and no punishment for anything he’d done. And neither did Candi. The Brunos were charged with assault but also released on bail. On top of that, the twins’ mother had received official reprimands, first from her boss and then from the mayor himself—wildly overcompensating so he didn’t look prejudiced against his political rival—as if the twins hadn’t worked entirely on their own.

None of it was fair.

Which was what Tess said to Aunt Esther. They were sitting with Theo and Nine on the back porch after a dinner where everyone hadn’t said much, and had eaten even less. Aunt Esther had made them some tea and put out a plate of Fig Newtons, but Tess wasn’t remotely hungry.

“I know it’s not fair,” said Aunt Esther. “The world isn’t fair.”

“It should be,” said Tess.

“I know,” said Aunt Esther. “But the world is unfair because a lot of people prefer it that way. And your parents know that getting in the way of those particular people makes you a target.”

“What if we don’t care about being a target?” said Tess.

“Maybe you don’t. But consider this: If you are a target, all of your family is also a target.”

Tess didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. Her mother had done a search of Tess’s and Theo’s phones—something that Sam said he could not prevent—and the sheer number of locations they had visited without her permission and the evidence of the lies they had told had horrified her. She wouldn’t listen to Tess or Theo when they said they’d been following clues, real clues, and that they thought they were close to discovering something important, maybe even the solution to the Morningstarr Cipher. When Tess had tried to appeal to her father, hoping that he would understand, he told her that she was grounded, and Theo was grounded, too. They wouldn’t be able to leave the house without supervision, they wouldn’t have access to their computers except for schoolwork, their phone usage would be tracked. And since they had done all of this with Jaime, they had spoken with his father and grandmother and they had all agreed that the three of them needed a “cooling-off period.” They weren’t to have any communication for a month, which would give them all time to settle into school and focus on what was important—their futures.

“But that’s what we’re doing!” Tess had protested.

Her father had shaken his head and walked out of the room.

Now Tess picked at the Fig Newtons on the table between her and Aunt Esther. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream or both. She wished she could call Grandpa Ben, talk to him about the Cipher that had been his life’s work, but even if her parents allowed her to make a call, or visit him at the memory care home where he lived now, they wouldn’t let her speak to him alone for fear that she’d pump him for information.

They weren’t wrong.

Tess sighed one of those where-have-I-gone-wrong sighs you can only learn from your parents. Aunt Esther patted her hand. “They’re afraid for you. Give them some time.”

School was starting. Slant was running for mayor and soon would have enough power to buy every building in Manhattan if he wanted. Jaime’s mother had something to do with the Cipher, but they didn’t know what. The Morningstarr Machines were growing restless and unpredictable, and someone, somewhere, was creating hybrid monsters out of innocent animals. They didn’t know how it was all connected, but they were so, so close. Tess could feel it all the way down to her toes.

And even if her gut wasn’t telling her that they had reached the end of the line, Slant did. Not to her directly, but to a gaggle of reporters gathered on the steps of the Tombs: “I want to thank New York’s finest for their hospitality. I have every belief that certain members of the force will keep a better eye on their children from now on. But let’s also keep our eyes on the future. We’re going to sweep out the old and make way for the new. In five days, you’re going to wake up to a whole new city!”

“But what does that mean?” asked a reporter.

“It means that you’re going to love it!”

Tess didn’t know what Slant was intending to do in five days, but she knew it would be horrible.

They didn’t have much time left.

Jaime had known this, too. As they were leaving the police station—the twins with their parents, Jaime with his father and grandmother—Jaime had dropped the origami heart. Tess had picked it up without anyone being the wiser, without anyone knowing that the heart held the plans for the mysterious Morningstarr Machine inside it.

Though it was still early, Tess and Theo said good night to Aunt Esther.

“Going to bed so soon?”

“No,” said Tess. “We’re off to feel sorry for ourselves.”

“Go have yourselves a good sulk. I promise you will feel better in the morning.”

Tess and Theo went upstairs to their room. Nine sprawled in front of the door, keeping watch for nosy adults. They unfolded the origami heart to reveal the plans that had gotten them into so much trouble, and might get them into more. Then they pulled out the various items they had gathered so far and set those out on the carpet—the chess pieces, the gear and puzzle box, the strange and creepy doll—all of it.

They studied the schematic. The device they were making appeared to be a small but complicated mechanism that fit inside a case about the size of a soda can, with some sort of lens on the front.

“It looks like a camera from the seventies,” said Tess.

“A camera from the seventies would be a lot bigger than this,” Theo said.

Tess ran a finger down the list of parts required to build the device, then sifted through the pile of random treasures and clues they’d gathered. “I think we’re supposed to take all these things apart and use those parts to make this instead. What do you think?”

“I think you’re right.”

“I’ll get my tools,” said Tess. She went to her closet and rummaged in The Magix, pulled out a small tool kit Aunt Esther had given her for her eleventh birthday.

“Aunt Esther comes through again,” said Theo.

For the next two days, they unscrewed and wrenched and disassembled, labeling the bits and pieces as they went, and quickly found, surprisingly and yet unsurprisingly, that those bits and pieces matched up with parts on the schematic—springs, screws, plates, brackets, gears, nuts, bolts. They took breaks only to shower, to skim the summer books and math packets that they hadn’t bothered to read for school, and to make appearances at meals, looking as glum as possible to keep their parents and Aunt Esther from getting too suspicious.

“What’s this?” Tess said on day three, showing Theo a bracket on which some characters had been etched.

“It’s Hebrew,” said Theo.

“I know it’s Hebrew, you dork. I mean what does it say? Can you read it?”

“Not well,” Theo said. “I think this means ‘ark,’ right? And this means ‘first.’ Or something.’”

“Mom would be so disappointed in us.”

“If we had our phones, we could use a translation program.”

“We don’t have our phones.”

“I know we don’t have our phones,” said Theo. “Let me get my Hebrew books. Wait. They’re downstairs in the bookcase.”

“Never mind. We’ll figure it out later. Let’s keep going.”

They continued disassembling and labeling until they had nothing left but the coins, the chess pieces, and one creepy doll’s head.

Theo sat back on his heels. “We don’t have enough parts.”

Tess grabbed the schematic and checked the parts list, but of course he was right. Except. “We’ve got most of the parts,” she pointed out. “All we’re missing are a few at the end of the list. Let’s build as much of it as we can.”

“But we can’t build something if we don’t have all the parts! I mean, if this is a machine, where’s the power source?”

Tess took a deep breath and put the creepy doll’s head on her hand like a puppet. “Theo, we’re going to build what we can, okay?”

That she finally got Theo to agree was proof that he was as anxious as she was. (Or scared of the doll’s head.)

So they began the careful assemblage. This screw fitting into that bracket, that bracket attached to the next bracket, the brackets attached to the gear they’d found back at the Tredwell House. They had to sneak down to the basement to use Aunt Esther’s vise—of course Aunt Esther had a vise—to bend some metal plates into rounded shapes, and then they used her mechanical punch press to put holes in each corner of the plates. They nested the intricate innards of the machine inside the rounded metal plates to form a small canister.

Exhausted, they looked at what they had built. And though it didn’t look much like a camera from the ’70s, it also didn’t appear to be anything special. Tess had been so sure that all they needed to do was build the machine and the rest would come clear. But now they were stuck. Really and truly stuck. They didn’t even know what the machine was. And they couldn’t talk to Jaime, they couldn’t call Grandpa Ben, they couldn’t go to the library or use the internet or contact anyone at the Old York Puzzler and Cipherist Society. School was going to start in a few days, and all they had managed to do was help level their own home and get their mother in trouble with the current mayor and the man who would probably be elected mayor. Did that mean their mother could be out of a job? And since their father worked for the public school system, did that mean he would be out of a job, too? How much more could they be punished?

Tears stung in Tess’s eyes. Nine roused herself and rubbed her big stripy ears against Tess’s arm, purring loudly. The black dye that had camouflaged her so well was fading, and her spots and stripes were more visible.

A knock on the door startled them all. Theo threw a blanket over the parts and the plans and sat down on it with his schoolbooks.

Tess said, “Come in.”

Their mother pushed open the door. The dark circles around her eyes told Tess how tired she was, how wrung out.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” said Tess and Theo.

“I just wanted to check on you two. Make sure you’re okay.”

“We’re fine,” Theo said. “Reading some stuff for school.”

“Oh! What are you reading?”

Theo showed her the book. “Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary,” she read. “Do you like it?”

“It’s really good,” Theo said.

“Glad to hear it,” said their mom. She leaned against the doorway. “Well. Don’t stay up too late.”

“We will,” said Theo, a little joke.

Their mom smiled an exhausted but loving smile. “I know.” She stood in the doorway a few moments, running a hand down the old wooden doorjamb. “Maybe this weekend, you two would like to visit Grandpa? We haven’t been in a while. Too long. And I think he’d love to see you. What do you say?”

Tess buried her head in Nine’s fur. Maybe their mom was checking up on them, maybe she was trying to keep them occupied so they couldn’t do any more damage. But it didn’t matter what her mother’s motives were. The tears that had been threatening to fall for days finally did.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Tess said. “We didn’t mean to make such a mess out of things.”

“Oh, Tess,” said their mother. She held out her arms, and Tess ran into them. She cried into her mother’s shoulder because she had lied and stolen and destroyed her home and her family’s trust, and because she knew that if it meant she could build the Morningstarr Machine, solve the Cipher, and finish what she and Theo and Jaime had started, she would do it all again.

Nightmares:

A scuttling monster in the shape of a hand chasing her down an empty street.

An Underway car as it hurtled through the city, a Guildman grinning skull-like as he urged the train to go faster.

The walls of 354 W. 73rd Street shivering, shuddering, and crumbling into a pile of rubble.

The giraffe-owary’s beak snapping, vicious claws tearing into her as she screamed.

A blond woman in a red dress pushing Jaime into dark and murky water.

Twenty Brunos at the door, saying, “You’ll do what you’re told if you know what’s good for you.”

Cops at the door, telling her that they were sorry, but they would have to take her mother and father away now, they had to investigate every complaint, they had to go by the book, sorry, they said, sorry.

Tess tossed in her sleep, clawed at her throat, struggling for air.

“Mrrow.”

She woke up to find Nine sitting on her chest.

“Nine, what are you doing?” she mumbled.

Nine licked Tess’s nose. Tess sneezed.

“Land of Kings.”

Tess almost fell out of bed. Framed in the window screen was Ono, hovering like a hummingbird, if hummingbirds had propellers on their heads.

“Ono? How did you get here?”

“Land of Kings,” Ono repeated, dipping low to display his propeller. Then he banged into the screen. “Oh no.” Banged it again. “Oh no.” Banged it.

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll let you in.” Tess opened the screen and Ono whirred into the room. Nine charged.

“Shhhhh! Quiet! Both of you!” Tess said. “You’ll wake everybody up.”

“You woke me up,” Theo mumbled. He rubbed his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Ono’s here.”

“Is Jaime with him?” Theo asked.

Ono landed in Theo’s hair and spat out a piece of paper. Theo plucked the paper out of his hair and sat up. He read, “‘I’m in the backyard, hiding by the bushes. Ono can be your ladder.’”

Tess and Theo flew out of bed and pulled on some clothes, some sneakers. They put the small unfinished canister in Tess’s messenger bag, along with the plans for the machine and the tool kit from Aunt Esther. Just in case, they dumped the chess pieces, the coins, and the creepy doll’s head in, too. Then Tess shouldered the messenger bag. Ono flew out the window again and latched onto the sill. Its limbs elongated, forming a narrow ladder all the way to the ground outside. Nine didn’t bother with the ladder. She sprang out of the window and landed in a nearby tree. She jumped to the grass.

Tess hesitated. “Mom and Dad will worry.”

Theo grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the nightstand. He wrote:

Don’t worry about us.

“That’s convincing,” said Tess.

“What do you want me to write?”

Tess took the pen:

We know you don’t understand. And maybe we don’t understand everything. But we’ve found more clues to the Cipher, so many more than you know. We’ve almost figured it out. So we have to follow this through to the end. We’ll be back as soon as we can.

We love you.

“I guess that’s better,” said Theo.

“You go first,” Tess said. “I’m right behind you.”

She waited until Theo was safely on the ground before she climbed out the window. With each rung, she took a step farther away from her parents. She did love them. So much. But she remembered watching a movie with her dad some months ago, before they’d left 354 W. 73rd, a movie about a guy who’d found out his whole life was a computer-generated reality. To keep living the way he’d been living, all he had to do was open a white box. To learn the truth, he had to open a black box. Her father had argued that the problem was that too many people thought they’d already opened the black box, that they were the only ones who could see the world for what it really was, the only people who could not be fooled. And Tess thought maybe children were their parents’ black boxes, boxes that they didn’t want to open for fear of the truths they’d find inside.

She landed on the grass with soft thump. If they left this yard, there was no turning back.

Jaime appeared out of the shadows. Ono snapped back into his regular form and flew down to where they stood.

Tess took one last look at Aunt Esther’s house, still and quiet in the night air.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”