Maze of Bones - 39 Clues 01 Read online

  "What?" Alistair asked.

  "Never mind," Dan decided. He began to climb the shelf, knocking down books and knickknacks.

  "Dan, get down!" Amy protested. "You're going to fall and break your arm again!

  Dan had reached the crest, and he saw what to do. The letters were smudged darker

  than the rest of the stone, like they'd been touched many times.

  "Amy," he called down, "what were those four branches again?"

  "Ekaterina," she called. "Tomas, Janus, Lucian."

  "Ekaterina," Dan repeated, as he pressed the E. "Tomas, Lucian, Janus."

  As he pressed the last letter, the whole shelf swung outward. Dan had to jump away

  to avoid getting squished into a book sandwich.

  Where the bookshelf had been was a dark stairwell, leading down.

  "A secret passage," said Uncle Alistair. "Dan, I'm impressed."

  "It might be dangerous!" Amy said.

  "You're right," Dan agreed. "Ladies first."

  CHAPTER 5

  Amy could've lived in the secret library. Instead, she almost died there.

  She led the way down the steps and gasped when she saw all the books. They went on forever. She used to think the main public library on Copley Square was the best in the world, but this was even better. It seemed more library-ish.

  The shelves were dark wood, and the books were leather-bound and very old, with gilded titles on the spines. They looked like they'd been well-used over the centuries. Oriental carpet covered the floor. Cushy chairs were spaced around the room so you could plop down anywhere and start reading. Maps and oversize folios were spread out on big tables. Against one wall was a line of oak file cabinets and a huge computer with three separate monitors, like something they'd use at NASA. Glass chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling and provided plenty of light, even though the room was obviously underground. They'd descended a long way to get here, and there were no windows.

  "This place is amazing!" Amy ran into the room.

  "Books," Dan said. "Yay." He checked out the computer, but it was frozen on the password screen. He jiggled a few file cabinet drawers, but they were all locked. Uncle Alistair gingerly picked a red folio from the shelves. "Latin. Caesar's campaign in Gaul, copied on vellum. Looks like it was handwritten by a scribe around, oh, 1500." "It must be worth a fortune," Amy said.

  Dan suddenly looked more interested. "We could sell them? Like, on eBay?" "Oh, shut up, Dan. These are priceless." She ran her fingers along the spines --Machiavelli, Melville, Milton. "They're alphabetical by author. Find the S section!"

  They did, but it was a disappointment. There were ten shelves packed with everything from Shakespeare's First Folio to Bruce Springsteen's Complete Lyrics, but nothing with Richard for the first name.

  "Something about that ... " Amy muttered. The name Richard

  coupled with the word Resolution, kept nagging at her. They went together, but she didn't know how. It drove her crazy when she couldn't remember things. She read so many books sometimes they got jumbled around in her head.

  Then she glanced down the aisle. At the end of the shelf, curled up on a box on a small table, was an old friend.

  "Saladin!" she cried.

  The cat opened his green eyes and said, "Mrrp?"

  without much surprise, like he was asking, Oh, it's you? Did you bring me my red snapper?

  Amy and Dan ran to him. Saladin had the most beautiful fur Amy had ever seen --silver with spots, like a miniature snow leopard. Well ... not so miniature, actually, since he was pretty enormous, with huge paws and a long striped tail. "Saladin, what are you doing down here?" Amy stroked his back. The cat closed his eyes and purred. Amy knew he was just a cat, but she was so happy to see him she could've cried. It was like part of Grace was still alive.

  "Hey, Saladin," Dan said. "What's that you're sitting on, dude?"

  "Mrrp,"

  Saladin complained as Dan lifted him up. Underneath was a polished mahogany box with the gold initials GC engraved on the lid.

  Amy's heart skipped a beat. "It's Grace's jewelry box!"

  Amy opened it up, and there was Grace's personal jewelry, which Amy had loved since she was little. Grace used to let her play with these -- a pearl bracelet, a diamond ring, a pair of emerald earrings. Amy hadn't realized until much later that the stuff was real -- worth thousands of dollars.

  She blinked the tears out of her eyes. Now that she'd found Saladin and the jewelry box, she felt like she really was standing in Grace's most secret place. She missed her grandmother so much it hurt. Then she pulled a very familiar piece of jewelry out of the box

  "Dear me," Alistair said. "That's her favorite necklace, isn't it?" He was right. Amy had never seen her grandmother without this necklace -- twelve intricately carved squares of jade with a green dragon medallion in the center. Grace had called it her good-luck charm.

  Amy touched the dragon in the center. She wondered why Grace hadn't been buried with this necklace. It didn't seem right. "Hey!" Dan called. "Look at this!"

  Amy found him around the corner, holding Saladin and staring at a giant wall map covered in pushpins. The pins were in five different colors: red, blue, yellow, green, and white. Every major city in the world seemed to have at least one. Some areas were stuck with only red pins, some with green or blue, some with several colors. "She's been doing voodoo on the world!" Dan said.

  "No, dummy," Amy said. "Those must be markers. They tell where something is."

  "Like what?"

  Amy shook her head. She found the map creepy. "Maybe something about the Cahills?" She glanced at Alistair.

  He frowned. "I don't know, my dear. Most curious." But he wouldn't meet her eyes, and Amy got the feeling he was hiding something.

  "Look at Europe," Dan said. "And the East Coast."

  Those areas were heavily pinned in all five colors. Amy could hardly see the cities underneath. If these pins represented the Cahills, then it looked like they'd started somewhere in Europe and spread across the world, heavily colonizing North America.

  Then she thought: Europe, Colonies. North America. The name Richard started nagging at her mind again, trying to scratch its way out. A name from the eighteenth century, someone who had written resolutions ...

  Suddenly, she turned and raced down the row of shelves.

  "Hey!" Dan cried, as Saladin wriggled out of his arms. "Amy, where are you going?" "The Fs!" she yelled.

  "What for failure?"

  She got to the Fs and found it immediately: a tiny book, so tattered it was falling apart. The cover was decorated with a red-and-white woodblock print of Colonial farmers. The title was faded, but she could still make out: Poor Richard's Almanack

  For the Year 1739, by Richard Saunders.

  "Of course!" Uncle Alistair said. "Very good, my dear. Very good, indeed!" Despite herself, Amy felt flush with pride.

  "Wait a second," Dan said. "If this was written by Richard Saunders, what's it doing

  under F?"

  "Richard Saunders was a pseudonym," Uncle Alistair explained. Dan knit his eyebrows. "A fake foot?"

  Amy wanted to strangle him, but Alistair said patiently, "No, my dear boy. You're thinking of a pseudopod. A pseudonym is a fake name, a nom de plume, a disguise for the author. This book was written by a very famous person." "Benjamin Franklin," Amy said. "I did a report on him last year." She opened the book. The text was printed in block letters without much punctuation, so it was hard to read, but there were charts, illustrations, columns of numbers. "This is the most famous thing Franklin ever published. Poor Richard was a character Franklin created. He had lots of pseudonyms like that. When he wrote, he would pretend he was different people."

  "So we're related to a guy with multiple personalities," Dan said. "That's great. Aren't almanacs for sports?"

  "Not this kind," Amy said. "This has facts for farmers. It's like a yearbook with useful tips and articles. Franklin put all his famous quotations in there, l
ike 'Early to bed, early to rise.'" "Uh-huh."

  "And 'A rolling stone gathers no moss.'"

  "Why would farmers care if stones are mossy or not?"

  Amy was tempted to whack him with the book. Maybe that would loosen the stones in

  his head. But she kept her cool. "Dan, the point is he got very famous for this. And he made tons of money."

  "Okay ..." Dan fished out the piece of paper with their first clue. He frowned at it. "So we found Richard S___ . How does that help us find our treasure? And what's RESOLUTION mean?"

  "Franklin used to write resolutions for himself," Amy said, "rules he wanted to follow to

  improve himself."

  "Like New Year's resolutions?"

  "Sort of, but he wrote them all year round. Not just on New Year's."

  "So was that part of Poor Richard's Almanack?"

  Amy knit her eyebrows. "No," she said uneasily. "His resolutions were from a different book. His autobiography, I think. Maybe the word RESOLUTION in the clue was just to help us think of Benjamin Franklin. I'm not sure - "

  She turned a page in Poor Richard's Almanack.

  Notes were scribbled in the margins in several different handwriting styles. She caught her breath. She recognized one line of elegant script, written in purple ink at the bottom of a page. She'd seen the same handwriting in old letters -- treasures that Grace would show her from time to time. The notation simply read

  Follow Franklin, first clue. Maze of Bones. "Mom wrote in here!" she cried. "She always used purple pen!"

  "What?" Dan said. "Lemme see!"

  "May I?" Alistair asked.

  Amy wanted to hold the book forever. She wanted to devour every word her mother had written in it. But reluctantly, she handed it to Alistair. "I want it right back," she insisted.

  "No fair!" Dan said.

  Alistair put on his glasses and examined a few pages. "Interesting. Several generations have held this book. These notes here are in Grace's hand. And here, my father's handwriting, Gordon Oh. And here -- James Cahill, Grace's father. They were brothers, you know, although Gordon's mother, my grandmother, was Korean." "That's great," Dan said impatiently. "But why was our mom writing about Ben Franklin?"

  Alistair arched his eyebrows. "Obviously, Benjamin Franklin was a Cahill. That does not surprise me. He was an inventor like me, after all. I would imagine most of the books in this library were written by members of our family, whether they knew their true bloodline or not."

  Amy was stunned. All of these famous authors ... Cahills? Was it possible, whenever she'd sat in a library, lost in books, she'd actually been reading the words of her relatives? She couldn't believe the Cahills could be so powerful, but Mr. McIntyre had told them their family had shaped human civilization. For the first time, she began to understand what that might mean. She felt like an enormous canyon was opening up at her feet.

  How had her mother known about the first clue, years before the contest began? Why had she chosen to write in this book? What did she mean by the Maze of Bones? There were too many questions.

  Meanwhile, Dan was bouncing around in his usual annoying way. "I'm related to Benjamin Franklin? You're kidding!"

  "Why don't you go fly a kite in a storm and see if you get electrocuted?" Amy suggested.

  "Come now, children," Alistair said. "We have much work to do without bickering. We'll have to read through these notes and -- "

  "Wait." Amy's whole body tensed. An acrid smell filled the air. "Is someone smoking?" Uncle Alistair and Dan looked around in confusion.

  Then Amy saw it. White smoke was thickening across the ceiling, drifting down in a deadly haze.

  "Fire!" Dan yelled. "Get to the stairs!"

  But Amy froze. She was mortally afraid of fire. It brought back bad memories. Very bad memories.

  "Come on!" Dan tugged her hand. "Saladin - we have to find him!" That jolted Amy into action. She couldn't let anything happen to the cat. "There's no time!" Uncle Alistair insisted. "We must get out!" Amy's eyes stung. She could hardly breathe. She searched for Saladin, but he'd disappeared. Finally, Dan dragged her up the stairs and shoved his shoulder against the secret bookshelf door. It wouldn't budge.

  "A lever." Dan coughed. "There's got to be a lever."

  Dan was usually good at figuring out mechanical stuff, but they groped around for a switch or a lever and found nothing. The smoke was getting thicker. Amy pushed on the wall and yelped. "The surface is getting hotter! The fire's coming from the other side. We

  can't open it!"

  "We have to!" Dan insisted, but it was Amy's turn to pull him

  along. She dragged him back down the stairs. The smoke was so bad now they could barely see each other.

  "Get as low as you can!" Amy said. She and Dan crawled through the library, desperately looking for another exit. She had no idea where Uncle Alistair had disappeared. The bookshelves were combusting -- old dry paper, the perfect kindling.

  Amy pulled herself up on a table and found the jewelry box. Don't take valuables.

  She knew that was one of the first rules for getting out of a fire alive. But she scooped up the box and kept going.

  The heat was getting worse. The air filled with ash. It was like breathing in a poison fog. Amy couldn't even crawl fast because she was wearing her stupid funeral dress. She heard Dan coughing and wheezing behind her. His asthma -- he hadn't had an attack in months, but this smoke might kill him if the heat didn't.

  Think, she ordered herself. If she were Grace, she would never make a secret room with only one exit.

  Amy sank to the floor, coughing and choking. All she could see was the oriental carpet -- a parade of woven silk dragons.

  Dragons ... like the one on Grace's necklace. And they were all flying in the same direction, like they were leading the way. It was a crazy idea, but it was all she had. "Follow me!" Amy said.

  Dan was wheezing too badly to answer. Amy crawled along, looking back now and then to make sure he was still behind her. The dragons led them between two burning bookshelves and dead-ended in front of an air grate about three feet square. Not very big, but maybe big enough. Amy kicked at the grate with her feet. On the third try it rattled off, revealing a stone shaft slanting up.

  "Dan!" she yelled. "Go!"

  She pushed him through and realized with a start that he was holding Saladin. Somehow, he'd found the cat, and the cat was not happy about it. Saladin clawed and growled, but Dan held him tight. Amy followed, gasping for breath. Her eyes felt like they were being sandblasted. They climbed up the dark shaft, and after what seemed like ages, Dan stopped.

  "What are you doing?" Amy demanded. The heat wasn't as bad now, but the smoke

  was still thickening around them.

  "Blocked!" Dan wheezed.

  "Push it!"

  In total darkness, she crawled up next to him and together they pushed on a flat smooth stone that was blocking their path. It had to open. It had to.

  And finally, it did -- popping up like a lid. Daylight blinded their eyes. They crawled out into fresh air and collapsed on the grass. Saladin got free with an indignant

  "MRRRRP!" and shot off into the trees. They were lying in the cemetery, not fifty feet from Grace's newly filled grave. The slab they'd pushed aside was somebody's tombstone.

  "Dan, you okay?" she asked.

  Dan's face was streaked with soot. Steam rose from his hair and his clothes were even blacker than they had been before. He was breathing heavily. His arms bled from a hundred cat scratches.

  "Think ..." He wheezed. "Don't want ... collect tombstones ... after all." Smoke poured out of the tunnel like a chimney, but that was nothing compared to what Amy saw when she looked up at the hill. Her throat constricted. "Oh, no." The family mansion was a roaring inferno. Flames winked in the windows and lapped up the sides of the building. As Amy watched, one stone tower collapsed. The beautiful stained glass windows melted. The family crest above the main entrance -- that old stone crest Amy had a
lways loved -- crashed down and shattered on the pavement.

  "Amy ..." Dan's voice sounded like it was about to break to pieces. "The house ... we can't let it... we have to ... "

  But he didn't finish. There was nothing they could do. A section of the roof crumpled, belching a fireball into the sky. Despair crushed the air right out of Amy's lungs, like the house was collapsing on top of her. She reached for Dan and hugged him. He didn't even protest. His nose was runny. His lower lip trembled. She wanted to comfort him, to tell him it would be all right, but she didn't believe it herself. Then she noticed something that jolted her out of her daze. In the driveway lay a collapsed figure, a man in a gray suit. "Mr. McIntyre!" Amy cried. She was about to run to his aid when her brother gasped, "Get down!" He wasn't as strong as she was, but he must've been desperate, because he tackled her with so much force she just about ate the lawn. He pointed up the road that led through the hills -- the only exit from the property.

  About five hundred yards away, half hidden in the trees, a man in a black suit was standing very still. How Dan had spotted him so far away, Amy didn't know. She couldn't make out the man's face, but he was tall and thin, with gray hair, and he was holding binoculars. With a chill, Amy realized he was watching them.

  Amy said, "Who -- " But she was distracted by the chirping sound of a car alarm being deactivated.

  Alistair Oh, sooty and smoky, burst out of the mansion's main entrance and hobbled toward his BMW, cradling something against his chest. He looked terrible. His pants were ripped and his face was white with ash. Amy had no idea how he'd managed to get out. She almost called to him, but something held her back. Alistair staggered past William McIntyre with hardly a glance, jumped in his car, and peeled out down the driveway.

  Amy looked back toward the woods, but the man with the binoculars had disappeared. "Stay here," she told Dan.

  She ran toward Mr. McIntyre. Dan, of course, didn't obey orders. He followed her, coughing the whole way. By the time they got to Mr. McIntyre, the entire mansion was collapsing. The heat was like a new sun. Amy knew there would be nothing left to salvage -- nothing except the jewelry box she was still clutching. She set down the box and rolled Mr. McIntyre over. He groaned, which at least meant he was alive. Amy wished she had a cell phone of her own, but Aunt Beatrice had never allowed them to have one. She fished around in Mr. McIntyre's pockets, found his phone, and dialed 911. "He took it," Dan wheezed.