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T H E E M E R A L D TA B L E T

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T H E E M E R A L D TA B L E T

DAN JOLLEY

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The Emerald Tablet Copyright ÂŠ 2016 by Working Partners, Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Childrenâ€™s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007. www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936320 ISBN 978-0-06-241165-5 (trade bdg.)

Typography by Torborg Davern 16 17 18 19 20

CG/RRDH

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

v First Edition

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For Tracy Always.

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PROLOGUE

– 1906 –

he subterranean smell came to Jackson Wright first, thick and damp and dark. His eyelids didn’t want to open, but

he forced them. When they finally peeled back from his raw, gravelly eyes, he found himself staring at the intersection of four stone arches fifteen or twenty feet above him. Where am I? He tried to look around, but . . . couldn’t. When he strained to turn his head, pain ground into his temples. He tried to search out the cause of that pain, but his hand stopped short, halted with a metallic clank. He couldn’t move his legs,

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either. The sharp tang of panic began to rise in his throat. I’m shackled! Someone’s chained me down to . . . what? Jackson could still move his fingertips. He used them to feel around as best he could. He lay, helpless, bound hand and foot to what felt like a massive stone slab. What he’d at first thought to be a distant buzzing in his ears clarified: a soft chanting filled the chamber where he was imprisoned. Jackson felt his panic grow. He didn’t recognize the words, but it sounded like dozens of voices, and they were coming from all around him. He couldn’t move his tongue. He could hardly even make a sound. I can’t speak! Terror stabbed at him like a knife to his guts. Was he . . . had someone drugged him? Where had he been, that someone could have slipped something into his food or his drink? The last thing he remembered was leaving the house with his father for an after-dinner walk. Everything else was . . . gone. Papa! Papa, help me! The words slammed inside his skull. Desperate. Useless. The chamber’s faint illumination shuddered and flickered like firelight. A writhing, dancing shadow fell across him, and only the metal strap holding his head in place kept Jackson from recoiling—but then his heart leaped. Papa! Jackson’s father leaned over him, his fine, white-gold hair, hair the same color as Jackson’s, all but hidden by the cowl of a long black robe. Papa, help me! Get me out of here! Papa! 2

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But Jackson saw something in his father’s eyes he’d never seen before. Something hard and cold, like chips of ice. Without saying a word, his father moved away, out of Jackson’s sight. Another man approached from the other side of the slab. Tall and narrow through the shoulders, he was draped in a hooded robe identical to the one Jackson’s father wore. But this man’s face looked like old, white leather, and his green eyes shone with an eerie radiance that turned Jackson’s mouth as dry as sand. Mama! He imagined his mother’s gentle, dark eyes. Mama! I won’t run in the house anymore. I promise I won’t! Please! Please help me! “Zxarna vrahmu otvortse. Dvai shvioutei pivuntxa.” As the green-eyed man spoke, the words buzzed and vibrated in Jackson’s ears, in his skull, as if a swarm of tiny insects had begun digging and gnawing at his brain. His hands longed to scratch, to tear at his scalp, but still he couldn’t move. As he spoke, the green-eyed man pulled a stone tablet from inside his robe. The stone was green, not entirely unlike the man’s frightening, luminous eyes, and it was crystalline, its color somehow both dark and bright at the same time. It looked like a solid slab of stone, but then the man opened it, and Jackson saw that the odd tablet had pages like a book. Yet the man didn’t hold it the way other people held books. He held it in the way someone would hold a live, venomous snake: carefully, and with great respect. Maybe even great fear. “Dvai 3

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shvioutei pivuntxa, majia povrunshei taigho shviunta!” The bizarre language reverberated around the chamber— not an echo, but dozens of voices repeating everything the green-eyed man said. This repetition somehow made the harsh words a thousand times worse. “Taigho shviunta. Taigho shviunta.” The unseen crowd chanted. Jackson would have cried out if he’d been able to make any noise at all . . . because he recognized one of those voices as his father’s. As the incantation continued, Jackson felt the air around him change. He couldn’t move his head, but his eyes darted in every direction. His vision went momentarily white as a circle of fire exploded into being eight feet above the slab where he was bound. Its heat made the skin of Jackson’s face pull tight. The burning ring rotated slowly above him, an enormous, twisted, ghastly version of the halos he’d seen over the heads of saints in church. Is this how I’m to die? Like a twig in a bonfire? Red-orange flames danced and licked around a blinding-white core . . . . . . and as the crown of fire spun, a broad arc of water surged up through the air from Jackson’s left, climbing in the shape of a rainbow over the flames. The water churned and frothed far above him, suspended in midair as it formed another ring, reflecting the fire in icy shades of white and blue and green. The same hard, cold colors he’d seen in his father’s eyes. Jackson whimpered. 4

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Without warning, a blast of arctic wind channeled its way across Jackson’s body, running frigid fingers through his hair. The very slab beneath him trembled and shivered, pulsing like a great, stone heart. Jackson’s muscles clenched as he tried again to free himself. It would have been better to scream his throat raw than suffer this paralysis. His heart thundered in his narrow chest, and tears as hot as lava squeezed out of his eyes. He watched, stunned, as his tears fell up. They left his face and streaked straight into the broad, terrible arc of water above him, each drop gleaming like glass in the instant before the impossible current swept it away. “I am Jonathan Thorne.” It took Jackson a heartbeat to recognize the words as English, and another to realize the greeneyed man wasn’t talking to him, or to the assembled crowd. He was talking to the strange green-crystal book itself. The scratching, hungry echoes of the other language still crawled beneath Jackson’s skull as the green-eyed man went on. “I am the opener of the way. I am the leader of the faithful. I am the author of doom and the wielder of power.” Jonathan Thorne pulled a slim silver dagger from the sleeve of his robe and sliced open the tip of his own thumb without hesitation. Jackson’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of the blade. In the firelight, Thorne’s blood was as black as ink. Thorne leaned over and touched Jackson’s forehead, painting something there, Jackson couldn’t tell what. Straightening up 5

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and using the same thumb, Thorne drew a five-pointed star inside a circle on the cover of the strange book. “I am Jonathan Thorne,” he repeated. “I am the seeker of magick. I am the explorer of the lost paths. I am the One Above All Others, and with this blood I name myself master of a new world of boundless power!” Slowly, so slowly, Thorne raised the dagger. The knife shifted in his grip, blade pointing straight down. Straight at Jackson’s heart. Jackson’s thoughts blurred as panic choked him. Wake up wake up I’ve got to wake up! This isn’t real. I’m having a nightmare. Why can’t I wake up? Why why why? WAKE UP! A flicker of movement from Jackson’s left drew his eyes, and for an instant, for just a split second, he thought he had awakened. Because there was his father, coming back to save him! He tried to cry out, tried to force his unwilling tongue to move. . . . But he could only watch as his father, with that terrible stony coldness in his eyes, slid off the signet ring Jackson wore on his left middle finger. No! Papa, what are you doing? Why are you letting this happen? Jackson’s father turned the ring over in his fingers, examining it in the harsh light from the circle of fire overhead. It was simple, gold, bearing the Wright family’s wagon-wheel crest: five spokes within a circle. It had belonged to Jackson’s grandfather. “You won’t need this where you’re going, my son,” the elder Wright said as he slipped the ring inside his robe. 6

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When his father turned away from him a second time, Jackson felt his heart break. Perhaps that was why it hurt so little when Thorne raised the silver dagger and plunged it into Jackson’s chest. Death. Jackson had given a good bit of thought to dying after his pet beagle was run down by a team of horses pulling a mail wagon. He expected to feel his life slide away from him. He imagined his consciousness fading like the flame of an oil lamp as its fuel runs dry. But instead, the air around him seemed to coalesce, growing thicker and taking on a crimson hue. He could still hear the chanting voices—“Taigho shviunta! Taigho shviunta!”—but everything he could see was now a horrible bloodred, as if he was seeing it through some kind of . . . what was it? A film? A skin? Blood seemed to flow out of his chest, and the strange membrane grew and thickened with it. Soon it surrounded him. Suddenly the chanting voices surged, became shouts, and the stone slab beneath him lurched. The ceiling trembled, and dust and bits of mortar rained down; and from somewhere, from everywhere, a vast, deafening roar shook the earth itself. As the bloodred cocoon tightened around Jackson’s body, the chanting voices turned to screams. “Earthquake!” someone screeched. It was the last word Jackson heard before this world became lost to him. 7

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“

kay, guys,” Brett said, pushing coal-black hair out of his face. “Lily and me’ll lift on three, and Gabe, you

push. Got it?” Gabe Conway squared his shoulders and gripped a length of rebar with pale hands. He wedged the rebar down beside the manhole lid and nodded, while Brett and Lily Hernandez tightened their grips on the lid hook. Lily nodded, too. Until a few days ago, she’d had shoulderlength black hair just like her brother’s but on a whim had decided to get it cut into a short bob. Now she teased Brett endlessly about his shaggy “emo hair.” Brett glanced over his shoulder at Kaz Smith, who was

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standing lookout at the mouth of the narrow alleyway, head swiveling back and forth. Beyond the alley, a bank of moonlit clouds had erased the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. “All clear?” “For now,” Kaz whispered. He ran an anxious hand over his buzz cut. “But I hear voices! Just hurry up!” “One . . . two . . . three!” The twins pulled, and Gabe pried with the rebar. The sewer cap was even heavier than it looked, but with the three of them pulling, the lid eventually squealed and grated its way free of the manhole. Brett and Lily dropped the hook beside Gabe’s now slightly bent rebar as Kaz pattered over to them. “Okay, everybody down!” Brett barked. Gabe might have been a little irritated at the order if not for the ridiculous grin plastered across Brett’s face. Gabe had never seen Brett so excited, and Brett got excited a lot. Gabe clicked on his flashlight. “Whatever you say, boss.” He peered down at the rusty ladder riveted to the side of the vertical shaft. “Why don’t you take the lead?” “As if I wasn’t going to!” Brett clamped his own flashlight between his teeth and disappeared down the ladder in a flash. “We’re really doing this, huh?” Kaz edged one toe toward the opening. “Can I just repeat that this is a terrible idea? It was a terrible idea when Brett had it, and it’s still terrible. What if there are, like, mutated alligators down there? Or flesh-eating mole people? Or . . . or rats?” As he was complaining, Kaz clicked 10

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on his head-mounted flashlight and started down the ladder after Brett, grumbling the whole way. “I mean, I’m going, but these rungs are a case of tetanus just waiting to happen. I don’t even remember when I had my last shot. . . .” His voice trailed off as he vanished into the darkness after Brett. My best friends, disappearing. How appropriate. Gabe turned to Lily and gestured toward the manhole. “Ladies first.” Lily cocked her head and frowned at him with her huge, dark eyes, black as ink in the dim light. She and Brett had the same eyes. “What’s wrong, Gabe? I thought you were excited about this field trip?” That was their code for the adventures they went on: “field trips.” Like sneaking into the abandoned drive-in theater to watch horror movies on a laptop all night, or their marathon Ouija board session in the graveyard. Lily’s forehead smoothed out as she seemed to realize what was bothering Gabe. She’d always been able to read him. “Oh. Hey, relax, all right? It’s not like you’re never going to see us again! My cousin Marybeth moved to freaking Tennessee, but I FaceTime with her almost every day. I think we talk more now than we did when she lived here.” Gabe managed a halfhearted smile. “It’s just, you know, I’m tired of all the moving around. I mean, seven cities in twelve years? Who lives like that? You’d think Uncle Steve was in the military.” She smiled back at him. “I bet you’ll make tons of new 11

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friends in Philadelphia and forget all about us.” Gabe could always count on Lily to try to boost his spirits when he was feeling down, but he wanted to say so many things in that moment. Things like: But I’m tired of moving all over the country! and I love San Francisco and I don’t want to leave. Most of all, he wanted to tell Lily, You don’t understand. You guys are the only real friends I’ve ever had. But he’d never say any of that out loud, and before he even had the chance, Kaz’s voice drifted up from below. “Hey! You’re not bailing on us, are you?” “Duty calls!” Lily said brightly, and scampered down the ladder like a monkey. Gabe followed. He had to drop the last three or four feet from the bottom of the ladder to the floor of the sewer tunnel, and his sneakers splashed in a shallow trickle of liquid that he tried very hard not to think about. The stink of rot and stale air made Gabe’s eyes water. He shined his flashlight around, picked out Lily and Kaz, and started to say “Where’s Brett?” but only got as far as “Where’s B—” before Brett leaped out of the shadows and shouted “Boo!” Gabe didn’t move or flinch, just closed his eyes and hoped no one could tell how fast Brett’s little scare had made his heart beat. Brett’s raucous laughter echoed up and down the tunnel. “Solid as a rock, this guy!” Brett bumped him with his shoulder, and Gabe couldn’t help but return Brett’s grin. “If we’re going to do this, could we please just do it?” Kaz 12

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waved a hand in front of his face. “It smells like a giant PortaPotty.” “Fine, jeez, gotta be so serious all the time.” Brett unslung his knapsack and rummaged around in it. “Do you not realize how epic this is gonna be?” He pulled out a rolled-up piece of silky cloth bound by a black ribbon. Gabe, Lily, and Kaz gathered around to watch him unfurl it. Gabe felt a pang when he looked at that piece of cloth. Uncle Steve’s occult research was way off-limits and usually kept under lock and key. The only reason they’d found the cloth in the first place was because three-quarters of Steve’s office already sat packed in boxes, and in all the chaos of packing, he’d forgotten to lock the door. So what if Gabe and his friends had done a little snooping and poking and prodding? The man had so much bizarre stuff, how could anybody keep from at least taking a look at it? Besides, Gabe had not stolen it. He’d borrowed it. Technically it wasn’t even him doing the borrowing. Brett had popped open that particular box. And anyway, it wasn’t like any of this stuff was real. If Brett wanted to add some make-believe to this last field trip, why not play along? Brett held up the cloth, and Kaz and Gabe shined their lights on it, illuminating a map with the title “The Golden Gates” stitched across the top. Gabe had never seen a map like this before. For one thing, it’d been hand-sewn into the silk with about a hundred different colors of shiny, metallic thread. 13

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For another, it depicted San Francisco, but not the real San Francisco. This was more like . . . art. Like an enhanced version of the city from some alternate universe, shimmering with color, all the buildings and streets magnified and twisted and surreal. “Such a weird map,” Kaz said for the thousandth time. “I don’t know how you can even tell where we are.” “Everything about this is weird,” Lily murmured. “Would you all just relax?” Brett laid the map down across his knapsack and pointed. “Here’s us. And the entrance to the secret tunnels is down there. And the secret room is right there.” He stabbed a spot on the map. “It’s, like, only half a mile away. Easy! Now come on!” Brett’s kid-on-Christmas-morning enthusiasm kept his insistence from becoming irritating. Or, at least, too irritating. With Brett leading the way, the four of them trooped along the tunnel and deeper under the city, the only noises the splashing of their feet and the sounds of distant traffic above them. After ten or twelve minutes the traffic sounds faded, and eventually stopped. “How far underground are we?” Kaz wondered, but no one answered him. Gabe turned the situation over in his mind. Brett had been talking about some sort of secret tunnel system underneath San Francisco for weeks, but Brett talked about a lot of stuff. Like the monster in Lake Champlain, and the haunted island off 14

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the coast of Venice, and how the entire city of Paris was full of ghosts because of the catacombs. Except this time things had started clicking into place: first Uncle Steve announced they were moving. Then Brett convinced them all to take a look at the “priceless artifacts” and “important research” that Gabe’s uncle usually kept behind locked doors. And then Brett stumbled across this weird map that just happened to show the exact maze of secret tunnels below the city that he’d been obsessing over. Lily had nailed it when she said this whole situation was weird. And what had been lying there in the box, right underneath the Golden Gates map, but a tiny, ancient-looking crimson book that described a bonding ritual—a ritual that would “tie together the members of a circle in this world, the last world, and all worlds in between.” Its cover had the image of a curiouslooking knot made of four loops. “Don’t you see?” Brett had waved the map around, his eyes huge, standing there in Uncle Steve’s office. He pointed to a spot on the glistening silk sheet where a small square of a room was tucked among the warren of overlapping tunnels. The same quadruple-looped knot engraved on the cover of the crimson book also appeared here, sewn in intertwined threads of several colors. “It’s perfect! We find this secret room, we do this ritual thing, and that way we’ll be friends forever!” Kaz had stood in the office doorway, keeping lookout as 15

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usual. “Are you nuts? You want us to go crawling around under the city based on that? You’ll get us all killed! Or, like, covered in poop.” Brett had flashed a brilliant grin at Lily and Gabe, and clapped a hand on Kaz’s shoulder. “We’ll steer clear of the sewage, Kaz. Tell you what. Let’s just take a look. If we can find these secret tunnels, we’ll do the friendship ritual so Gabe knows he’ll never be alone no matter what random place his uncle moves him to. If we can’t, I’ll let it go. Pretend like it never happened. Gabe? What do you say?” Gabe’s mouth had stretched into a massive grin. “You guys are the best. I say let’s do it.” And so, on a crisp late-autumn night, the four of them trudged through a dank, foul-smelling sewer tunnel, traveling deeper and deeper beneath the city. “There!” Brett practically jumped up and down, the beam of his flashlight wobbling all over a buckled brick wall in front of them. “That’s it! That’s the entrance to the secret tunnels!” He whirled on Kaz. “In your face!” Kaz took a step back, startled, so Brett softened his tone and raised a hand. “High five?” Kaz slapped Brett’s hand warily. “Well, you definitely got us somewhere. I’m just not seeing exactly where. That’s a dead end. Right? Plus it looks like it might collapse at any second.” Brett looked hard at the bricks. “Hmm.” He pulled out the map again, flicking his light from the wall to the map and 16

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back. “It’s . . . huh. I swear, guys, this is supposed to be it.” “How about we take a break?” Lily played her own flashlight along the floor of the tunnel.. “It’s dry here, at least.” Gabe took off his own knapsack and sat cross-legged on the floor of the tunnel. Kaz settled down next to him and fished a plastic bag containing a thermos and four cups out of his knapsack. “Tea, guys?” Gabe grinned. Of course Kaz had brought tea. His mom packed him a little thermos of it to bring everywhere. Gabe had spent a lot of time with Kaz’s family, and thinking of them reminded him all over again how much he was going to miss living here. The Smiths had a whole flock of kids, so their house sounded like a Chuck E. Cheese’s. Gabe envied that. His own house was so quiet it could pass for a library. If he wasn’t lecturing at the university, Uncle Steve was holed up in his office, and the house felt so hushed that Gabe was conscious of every step taken, every cabinet door closed. “I’ll take some,” Gabe said, holding out his hand. “You got it.” Kaz grinned and handed him a cup, then a small squeeze bottle of maple syrup. Gabe had always loved sweetening things with maple syrup, way more than with sugar or honey. How would he ever make new friends who’d get to know him this well? “Your maple syrup thing is weird, Gabe,” Brett muttered, reaching out to grab his own cup. “Weird syrup to go along with a weird map and weird 17

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tunnels and weird rituals and weird secret rooms,” Lily said as she pulled the silk map closer to better see it. “We’re just a bunch of weirdos.” Brett chuckled. Kaz and Gabe shrugged in unison. Gabe took a bite out of a granola bar he’d been carrying in his pocket. He tried to pass it to Lily, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy staring down at the strange silk map and then around the dark passageway they were in. Her forehead was scrunched up, like it was all some big puzzle to figure out. It was kind of a puzzle, Gabe supposed. A sort of treasure hunt, even if it only led to some empty room way under the city. But watching Lily trying to piece it together, you’d think a chest of gold doubloons was waiting for them down here. Though she was supposedly only five minutes older than Brett, Gabe thought Lily was about a century more mature than her twin. Not that she was bossy or boring or anything like that, but where Brett was a loud jokester, Lily was responsible and considerate. Brett was the type to be so busy chattering and goofing off that he’d walk right off a cliff if Lily wasn’t always right behind him, watching out for him. Brett let out a loud belch that echoed down the hall. Kaz jumped in surprise at the noise, then broke into a spasm of giggles. Gabe grinned and shook his head. Sometimes it was hard to believe that Brett and Lily were siblings, much less twins. But when he turned back to Lily, delight had lit up her smile. 18

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Suddenly, the resemblance between the Hernandezes was impossible to miss. “Lily?” Gabe asked. “What’s up?” She knocked back her tea, stood, and went to the buckled brick wall. The beam of her flashlight danced up and down along one section. “Guys! Look at this!” Everyone jumped up to join her. “See?” She pointed. “We were looking at it from the wrong angle. It’s like an optical illusion.” Gabe narrowed his eyes. “What’re you talking about? That’s just a gap in the bricks.” Without explaining further, Lily stuck her whole arm into what Gabe had mistaken for a slender crevice. “It’s totally a doorway! And there’s empty space behind it! I could tell there was something not quite right about how the shadows were falling.” “Yes!” Brett crowed. “Way to go, Lil! You found it!” “That looks like earthquake damage, guys.” Kaz sounded anxious and skeptical, as usual. “This is San Francisco. There’ve been, like, a billion.” Gabe examined the opening. “No, look. This was deliberate. See? Somebody wanted to hide this doorway.” Kaz huffed. “Okay, then, next question: What kind of maniac builds a secret doorway in the wall of a sewer?” Lily made a scornful sound, sort of like pffft, and before anyone could do anything about it, she wriggled through the 19

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gap. Brett whooped and squirmed through after her. Kaz heaved a great, long-suffering sigh. “Creepy friendship ritual it is.” But Gabe saw a gleam in his friend’s eye. Old, secret doorways? This was too good. Even Kaz the Skeptic was hooked. Gabe pushed and pulled his way through the narrow opening after Kaz. He and his friends were standing in a tunnel that was, without question, way older than the sewers they’d been walking through. The floor, walls, and ceiling had all been carved from huge blocks of stone. The corridor stretched away into complete, utter darkness. A chill ran up Gabe’s spine, but Brett forged ahead. “Let’s go!” Gabe followed his friends, idly wondering if they should be leaving a trail of bread crumbs or something. He imagined getting lost in these narrow, dank tunnels, and shuddered. Then Gabe noticed a dark heap in the tunnel ahead of them. “Hey, Brett—what’s that up there?” Brett aimed his light at the thing lying on the floor of the tunnel. It looked like a bunch of brown sticks. And maybe . . . what was that? An overturned bowl? Gabe’s stomach clenched as he realized what he was looking at. “Uh . . . guys? Those are bones.” Lily squinted at them. “What, like a dog died down here?” Gabe shook his head. “Not a dog. See that skull? Those are human.” 20

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Kaz jumped about three feet in the air. “A skeleton!” Everyone else hung back, but Kaz advanced on it, his voice getting higher and shriller the closer he got. “A human skeleton! A real human skeleton! Guys, this is a real dead human person skeleton!” Gabe heard Lily’s inhaler whoosh somewhere in the dark. Gabe was about to ask her if she was okay, but before he could, he heard her comforting Kaz. “It’s okay. Kaz, calm down.” Kaz turned to the rest of them. His eyes were as big as silver dollars in the beam of the flashlights. “But . . . but . . . but that makes this a crime scene! Doesn’t it? We have to tell the police! Right?” Brett walked over and crouched down, examining the bones. “Dude, this guy’s been dead for a long time. I don’t think someone’s waiting for him at home. We can tell the police when we get aboveground, but let’s keep going, okay?” He straightened up and faced them. “Okay?” Gabe stared into the dark, gaping eyes of the skull. That was a person. He swallowed hard. “Okay.” Lily nodded, and then finally Kaz did, too. This is some field trip. Gabe gave the bones a wide berth as he walked past them. After a minute or two Brett broke the silence. “I heard these tunnels were used to get corpses out of Chinatown during a plague outbreak,” Brett said. “Maybe that’s where the skeleton came from. Pretty cool, huh?” 21

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Kaz made a brief choking sound. “Not so cool for the dead guy, man.” “Seriously, Brett,” Lily said. “Show some respect. Remember that was somebody’s mom or dad . . . or brother.” Brett speared Lily with a frosty glance. “And you need to remember you’re my sister, not my mother.” Gabe hung at the back of the line and didn’t say anything. He tried to tread lightly whenever the twins started talking about family stuff. Their older brother, Charlie, had died in a boating accident the summer before. Gabe knew Brett blamed himself, even though nobody else did. Gabe could hardly imagine what it’d be like to have a sibling in the first place, much less how horrible it’d be to lose one. The tunnel went through a number of twists and turns, and for a while even dropped down into a cramped little passageway they had to crawl through. Finally the tunnel opened up again, and they stepped out into a huge, circular chamber, too broad for their flashlight beams to reach the opposite wall. Brett let out a low whistle as he walked slowly toward the center of the room, light swinging this way and that. Behind him, barely louder than a whisper, Lily asked, “What is this place?” Though he spoke at a normal volume, Brett’s voice boomed and rolled all around them as he said, “What is it? It’s perfect, that’s what it is! This is the secret room!” Gabe slowly took it all in. The floor had been divided into 22

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four quadrants. Someone had carved huge, ornate glyphs into all four sections. One of them had no stone laid over it, exposing bare, packed earth. On the opposite side of the chamber, water—from an underground spring?—flowed in an arc-shaped trough from one opening in the wall to another. A huge, empty metal bowl on a three-legged stand rested on its side off to Gabe’s left. He’d seen drawings of something similar in one of Uncle Steve’s books. That’s a brazier. You pile red-hot coals in it. From his right, a cold breeze came and went like the breath of a wheezing giant. Gabe swung his light up and spotted a big, square opening in the ceiling. Air vent. That drew his eyes along a supporting stone archway. There were four of them, and they met in the center of the chamber, directly above a huge stone slab that had been broken into several pieces. Small holes had been drilled into the slab’s corners, and rust stains marred the stone around them. Gabe shivered. He had the same question as Lily: What is this place? But still . . . Gabe glanced around at his friends. Whatever it was, this place felt . . . right. The chills down his back became a thrill of excitement. Gabe hopped up and sat on one of the larger pieces of the broken slab. “C’mon, guys.” He patted the slab. “Let’s do this!” Kaz came over to him. “This is Brett’s show,” he said softly. “What’s got you so excited all of a sudden?” 23

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Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean . . . if we’re doing a friendship ritual, I don’t think we’re going to find a better place than this.” He felt even surer of his words with each second he spent looking around the chamber. Almost all of the ridiculous occult mumbo jumbo Uncle Steve studied involved the four elements. Earth, air, fire, and water. And wasn’t that exactly what this room must represent? The bare earth, the running stream in the trough, the brazier meant to be filled with burning coals, the fresh-air vent in the ceiling. Gabe’s grin got bigger. “Come on, Brett! Break out the stuff already!” Brett and Lily clambered up onto the stone. Kaz followed, shaking his head but not saying anything. Once they’d arranged themselves in a rough circle, Brett pulled out a small penknife and a tiny glass with Wild Horse Saloon engraved on the side. Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Wild Horse Saloon? Really?” Brett put the glass on a more or less level spot between them. “The book didn’t say what kind of receptacle. It just said ‘small receptacle.’ Slow your roll.” Lily elbowed Brett in the ribs, but he ignored her as he opened the penknife. “Pure silver,” he said. “Our granddad got this for his retirement, so this’ll be our little secret, okay? Now, we ready?” Gabe looked around at everyone. If this means never losing you guys as friends, you better believe I’m ready, even if it is just pretend. He held out his thumb. “Everybody still cool with the elements we picked? Nobody wants to switch?” 24

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“You sure you don’t wanna trade, Brett?” Lily asked. Considering how he’d seen his older brother drown, it had been a big surprise to everyone when Brett told them he wanted to invoke water. “Nah,” Brett said. “Someone’s gotta be water, lame as it is. Just hold still, Mr. Human Torch.” Brett nicked Gabe’s thumb with the penknife, deeply enough to make three or four drops of blood come to the surface of the skin. Gabe let them fall into the glass. Lily held out her hand, and Kaz slowly followed her lead. Seconds later their blood mingled with Gabe’s. Brett didn’t hesitate when his turn came. Once he added his own blood to the glass, he opened the little crimson book and read aloud. “In honor of the four elements, we commend ourselves to thee. I name myself Water.” Lily closed her eyes. “I name myself Air.” Kaz gave Brett and Lily a look that said We’re really doing this, huh? He sighed. “I name myself Earth.” Gabe swallowed hard. “I name myself Fire.” Brett looked at the book again. “Let this joined circle never be torn asunder. Let it endure in this world, the last world, and all the worlds between.” A fresh burst of air howled in through the ceiling vent, making the water in the trough froth for a second. Kaz gasped and put his hands down on the rock beneath them as if he’d felt it move. Gabe wasn’t paying much attention to any of that, 25

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because all of a sudden his thumb hurt really bad. More than just hurt—it burned. But the wind from the vent died out almost as soon as it had begun, and the pain in Gabe’s thumb eased. He looked around at his friends, grateful that they’d agreed to bond with each other, even if it was just in a silly, mumbo jumbo kind of way. “Well?” Kaz peered at Gabe. “Feel any different?” Gabe grinned and lightly punched Kaz in the shoulder. “Nope. I still feel like a guy with the three best friends in the world.” “Okay.” Brett jumped down off the stone. “Enough with the Hallmark moment! I’m starving! Let’s find some . . . Is it breakfast time yet? I want some waffles.” Lily followed her brother. “You and your stomach.” “A man’s gotta eat,” Brett said, patting his flat belly. He put his arm around Gabe’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s find some grub.” Gabe smiled and joked and laughed with his friends as they made their way out of the chamber. But no words spoken or rituals undertaken could change the fact that his time with Brett, Lily, and Kaz was almost over, and it dragged on his heart like a lead weight.

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rudging down the sidewalk alone, Gabe felt sadder and more isolated than ever. His friends had already left, Kaz

returning to his big, loud, chaotic, wonderful family, and the Hernandez twins to their grandmother, who was watching them while their parents were out of town. Abuelita, they called her. Gabe could practically hear the plump, white-haired older lady playfully chiding Brett and Lily about not speaking Spanish any better than they did, at the same time plying them with cookies and brownies and flan. Uncle Steve knew how to cook, sort of, but everything he put in front of Gabe was unrelentingly healthy, and definitely didnâ€™t taste like love.

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Gabe arrived at the steep front steps that led up to their row house. All the lights were on despite it being—he checked his watch—a quarter to one in the morning. That meant Uncle Steve was awake, alert, and definitely aware that Gabe was out way past his bedtime. He tried to open and close the door as quietly as possible, but Uncle Steve had the hearing of a German shepherd. No sooner had the latch clicked back into place than the sound of his uncle’s uneven footsteps thumped toward him from the kitchen. Gabe swallowed hard and did his best to prepare for the inevitable onslaught. Only then did the sight in front of him finally register. Uncle Steve had been busy: the hallway that ran the length of the house’s bottom floor was lined on both sides with tightly sealed cardboard boxes. Each of them had been labeled in his uncle’s sharp, tidy block handwriting, as if a giant typewriter had thunked words onto the cardboard. LIVING ROOM, one pile read. KITCHEN, the one behind it was labeled.

It was happening right in front of him: his whole life uprooted again, his uncle ready to drag him away from everything he’d come to love in San Francisco and drop him in Philadelphia. Gabe’s teeth ground together as Steven Conway appeared at the far end of the hall. Uncle Steve was tall and built like an Olympic swimmer, with wavy silver-blond hair that fell to his jawline. If you’d dressed him in Robin Hood clothes and given him a big fancy 28

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bow, he would’ve looked right at home on the cover of a fantasy novel . . . except for the prosthetic leg, its metal visible between the hem of his pants and his shoe. “How could you?” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. Uncle Steve had perfected a tone that made your skin crawl and left you feeling kind of queasy. Usually it also made Gabe drop his eyes to his feet and stumble through an apology, but tonight, to his own surprise, it just irritated him. “How could I what?” Gabe shot back, even though he knew good and well what. Uncle Steve took a few steps closer, eyes narrowing. He had quite a few permanent lines on his face, but a special one showed up, right between his eyebrows, whenever he got angry with Gabe. “You went into my office. I don’t know what you took, but I know someone went through those boxes. You know you’re not supposed to interfere with my research.” Gabe couldn’t help it: he rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Oh yeah, your superimportant hocus-pocus research.” Uncle Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Gabe, listen to me. Apart from protecting years of work, I keep the items in my office locked up for a reason. They’re dangerous.” “Dangerous. Yeah, sure. Bunch of books and papers. Scary.” Gabe had never talked back to his uncle like this before. He’d never really told him how he felt being constantly moved all over the country for this imaginary garbage. “I only went through your stuff so I could have one last adventure with Brett 29

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and Lily and Kaz. I’m never going to see them again after next week, remember? Because of you! The first time in my life I’ve ever had real, actual friends, and do you let me keep them? No! Of course not! We’ve got to move again, for no good reason!” A cloud passed across Uncle Steve’s face. So quietly Gabe could barely hear him, he said, “No good reason.” But Gabe didn’t stop. He felt a searing wave building inside him, the kind of anger that Uncle Steve had always told him needed to be corralled, controlled, and gotten rid of. Losing control of oneself never helps anything, and it will certainly never help you. Gabe couldn’t remember how many times he’d heard Uncle Steve say that. But right now Gabe wanted to lose control. He wanted to wad up all the stuff his uncle had ever taught him and throw it back in his face. “Everything we do is about you and your stupid research! What about what I want? Did you ever think to ask me if I was totally miserable? No! ’Cause you’re always so wrapped up in all this junk! You never do anything for anybody except yourself!” Uncle Steve’s blue-gray eyes went wide. He took a breath to speak, but stopped and closed his mouth again. That gave Gabe such an intense jab of satisfaction—I left him speechless!—that he was immediately ashamed. But not ashamed enough to back down. Uncle Steve ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke, he sounded kind of— Gabe wasn’t sure exactly. Stunned? “Gabe, 30

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this is all for your own good. Everything I do, every bit of it, is for you.” But Gabe was done listening. He spun to his left and started climbing the stairs, very deliberately not looking back. Uncle Steve limped after him, his prosthetic leg thumping on the old, polished wood of the staircase, but Gabe was much faster and was almost at the top landing before his uncle spoke again. “Gabe, wait. I’ll explain if you give me a chance to. Let’s talk about this.” Gabe reached the top of the stairs. “You talk, I listen, right? No thanks.” He lifted one foot, about to start down the hall to his room, but after a lifetime of conditioning, he couldn’t overcome the Uncle Steve Tone when it was turned up to full strength. “Gabe. Stop.” He stopped. Turned and looked down at his uncle. Uncle Steve sighed. “You’re grounded. From now until we leave, the only place you’re allowed to go is school.” He didn’t even sound angry anymore, just tired. Gabe didn’t care. “So you’re gonna make my last few days here as lonely and depressing as possible?” Uncle Steve shrugged. “You brought this on yourself. You knew my office was off-limits, and you deliberately broke the rules. Actions have consequences. Now go to your room, and we’ll talk in the morning.” Gabe couldn’t form any words. He just made a sort of 31

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growling sound in his throat, stomped down the hallway past the locked door to his uncle’s office, and slammed into his room. He thought about shoving his massive, antique chest of drawers in front of the door—if he couldn’t go out, he’d make it so that no one could come in, either. But in the space of a heartbeat, all the loneliness and anger and outrage, all the walking and climbing, and the incredibly late hour all piled on top of him at once, and the only thing he felt was exhausted. Gabe skirted another stack of packed-full cardboard moving boxes in the middle of his bedroom floor and fell face-first onto his bed. He would have been asleep thirty seconds later if his phone hadn’t buzzed in his pocket. Group texts stacked up one after another. The first was from Brett: AWSM FIELD TRIP 2NIGHT! Then one from Lily: 2nite was grrrr8! U guys r the best! Finally Kaz chimed in: I think I might have black lung Gabe couldn’t hold back a smile. But it was a sad smile, realizing how little time he had left with these guys. Especially now that he could only see them at school. Part of him wanted to unload on them and stay up texting about what a jerk his uncle was. But it was so late. And it wasn’t like it would change anything. With the phone two inches from the end of his nose, Gabe poked at the keyboard with one finger, too tired to put forth the effort of using both thumbs: Im grounded. Worth it tho. C u @ school, guys. Nite. 32

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He dropped the phone on his bedside table and drifted off to sleep while it buzzed and rattled against the wood. When hazy morning sunlight invaded his room, Gabe squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the covers over his head. He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to go to school. And he especially didn’t want to face Uncle Steve. He felt a little bad about what he’d said last night, but he was still angry. He knew his uncle had an early class today, and Gabe hoped that he’d already left. No such luck. Gabe heard the door to his room swing open. Traces of the Uncle Steve Tone still lingered in his uncle’s voice, but mostly he just sounded sleepy. “All right, I’m off to work. Nothing’s changed since last night, though. You’re still grounded. I trust you can get to school on time?” Gabe groaned. He knew Uncle Steve wouldn’t leave until he got the answer he was looking for. “Yes,” he said, his voice muffled by the blankets. “Good. And I meant what I said about us having a talk later.” Gabe groaned again. “This should go without saying, but until then my office is off-limits. Strictly off-limits. Understand?” “Yes, yes, yes,” Gabe muttered. His door clicked shut, but it took another solid minute before he tossed back the covers and got up. By the time he’d stood in the shower, pulled on some 33

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clothes, and gotten downstairs to scarf some breakfast, Uncle Steve was long gone. Gabe peered at the clock: seven thirty-six. Too early for humans. School should start around ten thirty. Maybe eleven. He had just put his cereal bowl in the dishwasher when the chime of the doorbell echoed down the hallway. Gabe opened the door to reveal Brett, Lily, and Kaz standing there, all dressed for school, backpacks strapped over their shoulders. Lily gave him a brilliant smile, and Brett and Kaz both tried to look cheerful, but Gabe just couldn’t bring himself to grin back. He motioned them inside. “Since when do we walk to school together?” “Since it might be the only time we have to talk! We couldn’t just ignore your text from last night!” Lily said. “Even though you did a great job of ignoring all of ours.” Brett playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “You can’t expect to drop a message like ‘I’m never going to see you again! Goodbye, cruel world!’ and not expect us to check up on you.” That almost raised the corners of Gabe’s mouth. “That’s not exactly what I said.” Brett peered up the stairs. “Yeah, but we barely have any time left as it is. If you’re grounded, we really have to make the most of it. Is your uncle here?” “Nah, he had an early class. Gotta teach all those college students about make-believe and mumbo jumbo.” Kaz pulled his thermos out of his backpack. “I brought you some more tea,” he said. “Figured you might want to get 34

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in as much as you could.” Gabe took it. “Thanks. This’ll go great with lunch.” At Kaz’s grin, Gabe said, “We should probably get to school. Even though I really don’t feel like going today.” Brett threw a couple of brief but meaningful glances at Lily and Kaz. “Well, then . . . why don’t we just not go?” Gabe paused. “You mean skip?” Brett chuckled. “It has been known to happen, from time to time.” Gabe furrowed his brow at Kaz and Lily. “Are you two okay with this? You, Kaz?” “Just thinking about it is giving me hives, to be honest,” Kaz said, absently scratching his neck. “But I’d rather have hives than not give you a proper send-off.” Kaz wore his nervousness on his sleeve, but at his core he was as solid as a rock. “Me, too,” Lily said. Skip school? It was crazy. He was already in big trouble with Uncle Steve. But the longer he thought about it—over the course of a whole six or seven seconds—the more it appealed to him. Hadn’t Uncle Steve sort of put him in this situation? It shouldn’t surprise him that if he cut Gabe off from his friends, Gabe would do anything he could to spend more time with them. Plus, Gabe could tell that his friends had discussed this before they got to his house. None of them were the type to play hooky, but if they were all willing, well . . . “It’s not like it would even matter if I got caught,” Gabe 35

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said, thinking aloud. “I’d get even more grounded, sure, but grounded in Philadelphia, where I don’t know a single soul. So . . . yeah. Yeah! Forget school today! Let’s do something fun!” Kaz cleared his throat. “Um, I was thinking. We might not get caught if the school got some sort of note from a parent.” Gabe grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Parent or guardian, right? Come on. I’ll send an email from Uncle Steve’s computer and tell them we all got food poisoning. Follow me!” The four of them tromped up the stairs and clustered outside Uncle Steve’s office, which sported a shiny new lock now. Gabe rolled his eyes. Why not just say “I don’t trust you, Gabe?” “Okay, who here knows how to pick locks?” Gabe looked from face to face, but his friends all just stared at him. “It’s not like we’re hardened criminals,” Lily said wryly. “Oh, come on.” Gabe rattled the knob. “People pick locks all the time on TV! How hard could it be?” Kaz slid his tablet out of his pack and timidly raised a hand. “I think I can help. I’m sure there’s a tutorial on YouTube.” Brett clapped Kaz on the shoulder. “Now we’re talking! Pull us up some instructions!” Fifteen minutes later, following several viewings of a short video called “Lock Picking and You” and a house-wide search for a pair of paper clips (“It’s not my fault Uncle Steve keeps the 36

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paper clips inside the office!”), Brett and Gabe were crouched in front of the door, trying and repeatedly failing to open the new lock. Lily watched, hands on her hips and one eyebrow cocked. “A pair of criminal masterminds you are.” Brett didn’t look up. “I don’t see you picking any locks.” She scoffed, “Get out of the way, and I’ll show you how it’s done!” Behind her, Kaz leaned against the wall, watching more videos on his tablet, apparently unconcerned with their progress or lack thereof. More or less talking to himself, he said, “Whoa, this ferret’s riding a really small bicycle!” Gabe was too focused on the task at hand to talk. He knew he was supposed to use one paper clip to disengage . . . something. And then Brett was supposed to use the other one to . . . He actually wasn’t entirely sure. He glanced at Brett. “Maybe we should watch the video again.” Kaz burst out laughing. “Guys, come look at this ferret!” Brett’s paper clip slipped and stabbed Gabe’s finger like a tiny ice pick. Gabe yelped and jumped up, shaking his finger. He stuck it in his mouth and talked around it, glaring at Brett. “Dude, watch what you’re doing!” he cried, except it came out more like “Oo, wash wha oor ooing!” Brett stood up, shaking his head. “Well, we’ve done it now.” He pointed at the lock. Gabe peered at it, still sucking on his 37

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wounded finger, and his heart sank. The paper clip he’d been using had snapped off cleanly, lodged in the lock with no hope of being dug out. Brett went on: “Actually, to be accurate, we haven’t done it. That lock is ruined. Sorry about your finger, Gabe. Kaz’s hyena laugh startled me.” Gabe wrapped his wounded digit in his shirt and squeezed, hoping the pressure would halt the bleeding. He squinted sourly at Brett. “Yeah, you sound sorry. What’re we going to do now?” Brett looked around at all three of them before he spoke. “Look, Gabe, your uncle is going to know we tried to break in. The lock will tell him that much.” Lily frowned. “So?” Brett thumped his fist on the office door. “So, we don’t really have anything to lose at this point. Let’s just break it open.” Kaz’s jaw dropped. “What, like we’re in some action movie? Tell me you’re joking.” Brett gave Kaz his most charming grin. “C’mon, Kaz! Haven’t you ever wanted to be a bad boy?” Those words echoed in Gabe’s ears. Wasn’t that what Uncle Steve thought he was? Bad? Well, this’ ll be exactly what he expects from me, won’t it? Before Kaz could answer, Gabe said, “Brett’s right. Let’s do it.” “Guys! Stop!” Lily put herself between Gabe and the door. 38

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“Come on, Gabe. Literally breaking down the door? It’s not worth it! Think how much trouble you’ll be in!” “Exactly the same amount as I’m in now,” Gabe said, somewhere between glum and sullen. He knew that, as always, Lily was just looking out for him. But she wasn’t going to have his back forever: Gabe’s remaining hours with her and the rest of his friends were numbered. If he got into Uncle Steve’s office and emailed the school, he’d be able to squeeze in a few more. That alone made breaking down the door worth the consequences. “Will you move over, please?” Lily shook her head, but she stepped aside. Gabe nodded to Brett. “On the count of three.” At the end of the very short countdown, Gabe and Brett rammed the door with their shoulders at the same time, and the door sprang free of the wood frame with a splintering crack. The office was meant to be a bedroom, so it was basically the same size and shape as Gabe’s room. Ordinarily it was a treasure trove of strange and bizarre items. Ancient scrolls, polished glass skulls, ornate candlesticks . . . and books. So many books. Books of all shapes and sizes, every one of them as old as dirt, and almost none of them written in English. But now the office had been packed up, stored in Uncle Steve’s thoroughly taped, neatly labeled cardboard boxes. The only things left unboxed were the computer sitting on his uncle’s desk and half a dozen empty bookshelves. Gabe immediately sat down at the desk and woke the computer. “This won’t take 39

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long,” he said to no one in particular. “I figured out his email password years ago.” Gabe0627. My name and birthday. For just a second Gabe let himself stop and think about what it meant that his uncle had chosen that password. But then he pushed the thought away. Kaz hovered anxiously in the wrecked doorway and Lily leaned against the wall, arms crossed, but Brett wandered the office, looking around. That was how they’d found the Golden Gates map: Brett wandering and looking. Gabe had just about finished composing the email on Uncle Steve’s computer—being careful not to use his right index finger for fear of getting blood on the keys—when Brett, standing at the corner of the desk, cried out in surprise. “Whoa! Guys, look at this!” Gabe glanced up to see Brett holding a strange book. Gabe had never seen it before. The book’s cover looked as if it was coated in gold dust, and a slender crimson ribbon was wrapped around it top to bottom and side to side, tying it closed. As Brett turned it in his hands, Gabe spotted several odd runes stamped into the gold. “Where’d you get that?” Brett pointed at the side of the desk. “It was right here! Behind this paneling.” As Lily and Kaz crowded forward to see the book, Gabe got up and looked at the spot where Brett had pointed. Sure enough, a wood panel on the side of the desk had swung out, 40

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like a little secret door. “How the heck did you even find that?” Brett wasn’t listening. He and Kaz had started trying to open the book but weren’t having any luck. “What is up with this ribbon?” Kaz said, annoyed. “Is it glued down or something?” Lily said, “Maybe you shouldn’t open it, guys,” but Brett ignored her, too. He shoved the book at Gabe. “Here, maybe you’ll have better luck.” Gabe peered at the book. There was something weird about it. He cocked his head, looking closer. In the morning sunlight, the shadow of Brett’s arm stretched across the floor of the office. But the shadow . . . ended too soon? Did the book not cast a shadow? Gabe shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. That’s ridiculous. Keep it together, Gabe. “Yeah,” he shot back, “or maybe I’ll put it back where it came from.” Gabe was going to say something more, about Brett’s snooping around and how he maybe shouldn’t be doing so much of it, but then his outstretched hand made contact with the book. Pain shot through his injured finger, and a little smear of blood traced across the cover’s surface. That was when things got strange. The office seemed to fill with heat. It blazed through Gabe’s body, as if the scorching rays of a hot summer sun were suddenly focused on him through a giant magnifying glass. Gabe 41

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faltered, grabbing the desk to steady himself. Lily said, “Gabe! Are you okay?” But he didn’t answer her, because as he watched, astonished, the narrow ribbon binding the book evaporated into a shower of tiny red droplets that diffused in the air and disappeared. Gabe tried to drop the book, but he couldn’t. It felt as if the book was somehow gripping him. The gold dust on the cover shook loose and rose in the air, revealing a cover of brilliant emerald green. The shimmering motes swirled into four streams, curving and waving like sea serpents. Eyes wide and voice filled with wonder, Kaz let out a long, drawn-out “Whooaaa. . . .” “Guys!” Lily’s eyes had gone wide, too, but not with wonder. She started edging toward the door. “Guys, I don’t like this! Guys!” Gabe could hardly process this amazing and impossible thing happening right in front of him. He glanced over and saw Brett watching the swirling gold dust with a broad, toothy grin on his face. Gabe managed to say “Brett?” before the golden tendrils— again, like serpents—coiled and struck. In a heartbeat, the tendrils flashed out, one for each of them, and flowed into all their bodies. They didn’t just breathe in the dust. It saturated their skin and sank through it, absorbing into them. And then— —Gabe found himself somewhere else. Lying on a stone slab looking up at a ceiling where four stone arches met in a cross, 42

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staring through something red. Red as blood. It was blood! Some kind of membrane made of blood enveloped him like a cocoon, and Gabe clawed at it, tore and shoved and ripped until he pulled free and sat up. As soon as he did, the stone walls around him cracked, crumbled, and fell . . . up. As if gravity had reversed itself, the stones shot straight up into the sky, revealing a cityscape around him that Gabe could barely comprehend. After a moment it hit him: the city was San Francisco. But not the San Francisco he knew. All the buildings rose into twisted, gnarled shapes, like massive, towering trees that had long ago died of a terrible blight. Movement caught his eye, and he squinted, then wished he hadn’t. Gargoyles perched on ledges, actual living, breathing gargoyles, and one by one they turned their heads and glared down at him like vultures zeroing in on a dying animal. A warm, sickly wet wind blew across him, followed by a roar that made the ground beneath him tremble. Gabe watched as the gargoyles took flight, circling those ghastly towers. High above the towers, framed against a sky swirling with amber and gold, something else flew. Something enormous, held aloft on many-masted wings. No—more than one! Another and another, airborne behemoths, each one a twisted fun house–mirror version of a dragon. The roar sounded out again, and Gabe twisted his head to try to find the source. He couldn’t see what had produced that awful, earsplitting bellow, but he did see a shadow, vast and monstrous, moving through the darkened streets, coming closer and closer. 43

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rett groaned and, after a couple of tries, managed to sit up. His head felt like an elephant had run over it. Actu-

ally, it was more like the elephant was standing on his skull at this very second. Scratch that: a whole family of elephants were balancing on his brain, like it was a prop in some messed-up circus trick. Yeah. That pretty much nailed the sensation. When his vision finally cleared, there were no elephants in sight, but wherever he was definitely did not look like his bedroom. Weird. For a second Brett thought he might be dreaming, but then his mental cobwebs parted and everything came rushing back: Dr. Conway’s office, and the Tablet, and . . .

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My friends! Brett sprang to his feet. “Guys? Guys!” A groan from behind him made him spin around. Kaz and Lily were both sitting on the floor, looking as out of it as Brett felt, while Gabe propped himself up on his elbows. “What just happened?” Lily asked, rubbing her eyes. Brett helped his sister to her feet, feeling a flicker of guilt as Gabe and Kaz got up on their own. “Looks like we all passed out.” “Yeah,” Gabe said, “but why?” Yeah, why, Brett? He could see the wheels turning in Kaz’s head. Counting off on his fingers, Kaz said, “Well, there could be a gas leak in here. But I don’t think we would’ve gotten up from that. Or there could’ve been a minor earthquake and it knocked us down, and we all hit our heads on the floor. . . . Nah, that sounds dumber the more I talk about it. Oh! We could’ve picked up some kind of fungal infection down in the tunnels! Are any of you hallucinating?” “You’re hallucinating if you think any of those things make sense,” Lily said. It took effort for Brett to look just as confused as they were. But he had become very good at keeping secrets. Just as he’d become so good at pretending to be as happy and carefree as everyone expected him to be. Sometimes if felt like he was two different people, living two entirely separate lives. Gabe put a hand on the back of a chair to steady himself, 45

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and Brett jumped over to take his friend’s arm.“You okay, man? You don’t look so good.” He tried to sound casual, but he could feel guilt warm his ears. I will never forgive myself if any part of this hurts one of my friends. Brett had plenty of experience not forgiving himself. “Nah, I’m fine.” Gabe gently pulled his arm out of Brett’s grasp. “I’m just confused is all. Look at that.” He pointed at the Tablet, now lying on the edge of Dr. Conway’s desk. “Am I crazy? Or wasn’t that book gold? Y’know, before?” Lily said, “Hey, you’re right. Bizarre.” “It’s a tablet,” Brett said, more to himself than to anyone else. It’d seemed odd to him, too, but that was what his Friend called it. And now he understood why: the artifact’s gold cover was gone, and beneath it was a solid block of glimmering green stone. The material was really strange. It sort of shone, but it was dark at the same time, like it was filled with both shadow and light. So far he’d done everything his Friend had asked him to, weird as it all seemed. He’d taken the Golden Gates map, and found the special room in the tunnels, and gotten everyone to perform the ritual. He’d even cut Gabe’s finger, and made sure Gabe’s blood got onto the Tablet. But he hadn’t known what to expect. Brett rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the thing. Had its gold cover disappeared as soon as Gabe’s blood touched it? He was about to ask the others what they remembered, from 46

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the time when Gabe touched the Tablet to all of them waking up on the floor, when suddenly they had a much bigger problem to deal with. Dr. Steven Conway stood in the doorway, glaring at them with such intensity and anger that Brett was a little surprised none of them turned to stone. Or dropped dead. Or maybe burst into flames. If he’s back already, that means we were out cold for a couple of hours. . . . Dr. Conway’s silver-blond hair and sharp blue-gray eyes kind of creeped Brett out, and he always looked serious, but the look on his face now was at a whole new level. Without thinking, Brett took a step sideways, blocking Dr. Conway’s view of the Tablet. The man’s death-laser stare settled on Gabe. “After everything we talked about last night. It’s not bad enough that you’re skipping school. You’re in here? Going through my things? Again?” Dr. Conway hadn’t raised his voice, but somehow that only made him sound angrier. “Gabe, how can you be so irresponsible? I tried to tell you how dangerous some of these things are. I’ve been keeping you out of here for your own protection!” Gabe took a deep breath. “My protection?” he said with a blaze of anger Brett had never seen before. “Right. Not like you aren’t a total control freak about absolutely everything. None of this junk is dangerous. How could it be?” Brett had the feeling these words had been simmering inside Gabe for a long while. Still, hadn’t the Tablet just knocked them 47

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all unconscious? The ancient book was clearly a whole lot more than “junk.” He had a bump on the back of his head to prove it. Or could Gabe have somehow completely forgotten what happened before they passed out? “I mean, you expect me to believe that a bunch of moldy papers are going to hurt me?” Gabe continued. “Admit that you just like ordering me around. You’re making it all up!” Dr. Conway took in a sharp, hissing breath. “Making it up?” “You heard me. It’s all hocus-pocus. Mumbo jumbo. Total gibberish.” Uncle Steve turned a superalarming shade of red. It really seemed like Gabe had totally forgotten about the Tablet. Weird. Then again, everything about this was weird. Brett wondered uneasily what Gabe would think if he knew everything Brett did about all this “hocus-pocus.” Brett wasn’t even sure what he himself thought. He wanted so much to believe everything his Friend had told him, no matter how fantastical it all sounded. Forget fantastic, most of it sounded downright impossible. But crazy as the whole thing was, so far everything his Friend had said turned out to be true. Brett took Dr. Conway’s distraction as an opportunity to reach behind himself and pick up the Tablet. Heat flowed up through his hands and arms, filling his body like a charging battery and almost making him drop it. Was this thing really so powerful? Was that why his Friend wanted it so badly? The Tablet looked like it should have weighed about fifty pounds, 48

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but Brett could heft it with one hand. He slid the artifact into his backpack, careful not to attract Dr. Conway’s attention. But it seemed like Dr. Conway’s whole world had narrowed down and become Gabe-shaped. “How can you think that I’m lying to you?” Dr. Conway’s voice started to rise. Slowly, but really scarily, like floodwaters. “I wanted to explain to you last night. I thought maybe you were grown-up enough to hear it, but then you stormed off like a child.” “Right, I’m the child, but you’re the one who believes in fairy tales?” Sarcasm dripped off Gabe’s words. “How can you tell me you believe in this”—Gabe waved one hand at the moving boxes stacked on the office floor—“garbage? You act like it’s so important, but the truth is, you’re a professor of stupid, imaginary stories cavemen told each other around campfires. Stuff to explain why the sky is blue and why snow falls when it gets cold! It’s all make-believe!” Brett had never seen Gabe this angry, or heard him just flat-out call Dr. Conway’s work a bunch of crap. He exchanged glances with Lily and Kaz, and a silent bit of communication passed between the three of them: Let’s get out while we still can. Brett began to edge away from the desk, following his sister and Kaz out of the office and into the hallway. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Conway yelled, shaking his head. “The fact that you don’t understand how these artifacts can be dangerous is exactly why I don’t want you around them! And as long as you’re living under my roof, 49

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eating my food, you’ll follow the rules I set for you!” Gabe folded his arms across his chest and stuck out his chin. “You’re not my father. We’re not even related. Why pretend you care anything about me?” Dr. Conway’s shoulders slumped. He squeezed his eyes shut. Brett stared at Gabe from the doorway. Overprotective or not, technically related or not, Dr. Conway was Gabe’s family. And Brett knew how valuable family really was. Before he could stop himself, he said, “Dude!” That got Dr. Conway’s attention, much to Brett’s dismay. He speared Brett with that awful, furious stare and jabbed a finger at him, but even then he still spoke to Gabe. “It’s them! They’re doing this to you! Ever since you met them, you’ve been out of control! Thank God we’re moving. You’re going to be on a short leash in Philadelphia, young man.” Brett had just enough time to see tears well up in Gabe’s green eyes before Lily grabbed Brett’s shoulder and hauled him to the front door and out of the house. They waited on the sidewalk for what felt like hours. Inside the house, Gabe and Dr. Conway kept arguing, and every so often they’d get loud enough for Brett to make out a word, all the way from the street. “Juvenile” was one, along with “irresponsible,” “grounded,” and “straight home from school.” Kaz shuffled his feet. “Uh . . . guys? Are we going to talk about what happened in there?” 50

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“It’s still happening.” Lily frowned up at the door of the row house. “Can’t you hear them?” “Not what I meant.” Kaz felt the back of his head and winced. “Okay, yeah, I’ve definitely got a bump on my skull from when I passed out. I mean, we did pass out, right? It had something to do with the . . . What’d you call it? Tablet?” He looked from Lily to Brett and back. “You do remember that, right? It wasn’t just me who passed out, was it?” His eyes widened in alarm, and his hands flew to his cheeks. “Oh God, was it just me? Did you guys draw on my face while I was unconscious?” The front door burst open, and Brett whispered “Quiet!” as Gabe came rushing down the steps, furiously wiping at his face with the back of his sleeve. Gabe’s expression was dark, but it lightened a shade when he saw his friends waiting for him. “Come on,” he said when he reached them. “Let’s get out of here.” Brett looked at Kaz and Lily, but neither of them seemed to know what to do, and Brett sure didn’t. So they took off up the sidewalk after Gabe, ignoring how red and puffy their friend’s eyes were. A couple of times Brett looked back at the house, but he didn’t really expect Uncle Steve to try to follow. Just as well, since Brett had one more item to check off on his list. One more thing to do for his Friend, and then his side of the bargain would be complete. “So, uh,” Kaz started. “Are we going to school?” 51

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Brett jumped at the opening. “No way! Are you nuts?” He checked his phone. “It’s only ten thirty! We’ve got the whole day to ourselves!” Lily shrugged. “Well, we’ve already been marked absent, that’s for sure.” Brett nodded. “Right! Let’s do something fun!” Sounding more like a depressed old man than a twelveyear-old boy, Gabe said, “Fun. Ha. I bet I’ll be locked in my room till I’m eighteen.” Brett nudged him with an elbow and plastered a big, friendly smile on his face. He needed his friend on board; his work for his other Friend wasn’t done. “All the more reason to take the day off! I mean, you’re leaving next week. This is our last shot at a big adventure! The field trip to end all field trips!” Kaz snorted. “The tunnels and the ritual weren’t enough? We still have to tell the police about that skeleton, remember.” Brett frowned at Kaz. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll jump all over a random skeleton from a hundred years ago.” Kaz sputtered, couldn’t seem to come up with a good reply, and ended up sticking out his tongue at Brett. The four of them stopped near a bench at the edge of a small park. Gabe looked back toward his house a couple of times, drew a breath to speak, stopped himself, and finally said, “What’d you have in mind?” Lily smiled at Brett. “If we were older we’d get busted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” 52

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Brett dug into his backpack. He tried not to make it obvious that the Tablet was in there, or that he was taking pains not to let his hand brush it. He wasn’t quite ready to feel that hot, charging-battery sensation again. “Ah-ha!” His hand closed around what he was going for, and he pulled it out triumphantly: the Golden Gates map, rolled back up and tied with the ribbon again. Gabe groaned and covered his face with his hands. Kaz’s mouth fell open. “You were supposed to put that back in Dr. Conway’s office!” “Guess I forgot,” Brett said, trying to sound mischievous. That’s right, I’m just a bratty kid. No other motivations at work. Nothing to see here, move along. He unrolled the map on the bench and tapped a large, intricate glyph a short distance offshore. “If there’s one place in this whole city that’s definitely haunted, that’s got to be it! We have to check it out before Gabe goes!” Gabe groaned again. Brett wasn’t sure exactly what the groan meant—it could have been either My uncle’s going to have me arrested or Oh God, not more stupid haunted crap—so he really poured it on. “Come on, Gabe. I know you said you don’t believe in any of your uncle’s occult stuff, but this map helped us find that cool chamber, didn’t it? There’s gotta be something awesome to see out there, paranormal or not.” “I’m pretty sure it was ghost-free back when we went there on our second-grade school trip,” Kaz said. 53

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“Yeah, but that was before Gabe got here. Before we got the whole gang together.” He wrapped his arms around Kaz’s and Gabe’s shoulders. “Alcatraz?” Lily asked as she squinted at the map. She couldn’t have sounded more skeptical. “I dunno. Doesn’t it cost money to take a tour there?” Brett struggled to keep his good cheer up as he unslung his arms from around his friends’ shoulders and pulled out his wallet. His Friend had told him this would be necessary, so he’d looked up the prices online and brought along his New Bike Fund. He pulled out a medium-sized stack of bills. “Don’t worry, Lil. It’s Gabe’s last hurrah. I’ve got it covered.” Gabe was already shaking his head. “No way, man! I can’t let you spend that much on me!” Brett put a hand on his shoulder. “Like I said. You’re leaving. And yeah, I know we’ll Skype and stuff, but this is your big send-off. Don’t worry about the money. I got it for my birthday.” Lily’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair. Brett could tell what she was thinking: they had the same birthday, and she sure as heck hadn’t gotten a stack of cash! But he gave her the best “Just be quiet and roll with this” look he could muster, and to his relief she went along with it. Frowning but cooperative. Gabe sealed the deal when he said, “Well, I have always wanted to see Alcatraz.” 54

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The four of them filed onto the ferry and, at Brett’s suggestion, climbed up to the top level. The air was already cold, and that high up, the wind had some real teeth to it. But up top they could stand along the guardrail and get a postcard view of the city, the island ahead of them, and the water below. Not that Brett wanted a good view of the water. Since Charlie had drowned, Brett hated the bay. The others probably thought he was trying to be brave, choosing water as his element at last night’s friendship ritual. But that’s only because they didn’t get it. They’d never get it. Not even Lily. Brett had been the only one on that boat with Charlie. He was the only one who knew why they’d capsized. He still couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the flash of blood that came when the mainsail crashed against Charlie’s head. The terror in Charlie’s eyes when he went under the silvery water that last time. Brett had reached for his brother. He’d tried with everything he had to save him. But Brett wasn’t strong or tough or brave enough. He wasn’t good enough. Charlie went under and never came back up. Brett was left alone with nothing but the cold of the bay around him and the howl of his own scream in his ears. No. Choosing water last night hadn’t been an act of bravery. It was penance. Even the idea of going on a boat still made him light-headed. 55

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But he had no choice—and he figured Gabe would enjoy it. Gabe didn’t seem capable of enjoying anything, though. He looked so down, he might as well have had “I feel guilty about arguing with my uncle” tattooed across his forehead. “I hope we can see the sea lions from the boat,” Kaz said, and when Gabe perked up, he continued. “I mean, maybe it sounds lame, but I like watching them even when they’re just napping there.” Gabe smiled, and Lily jumped in. “Sea lions are way better than seals. I was down in Monterey one time, visiting my cousin, and we went out to the shore. There’s no beach or anything; it’s just big rocks, and I climbed out onto one of them, and suddenly there’s a seal head poking up out of the water. Just staring at me. And then I noticed another. And another.” Gabe laughed. “They were just floating there?” “Yeah! I don’t know if I was on their rock or what, but I counted fourteen seals, just floating there in the water, their heads sticking up, all of them giving me the hairy eyeball. It was a little creepy.” Gabe laughed again. Brett looked away. Kaz and Lily had what you call “people skills.” They were both so nice. Kaz was a worrier, definitely, but just last week he’d given Brett his own rubber boots, right off his feet, because Brett had farther to walk in the rain. Brett had never known a more loyal friend. And Lily . . . she was so sweet to everybody. Everybody. Even him. She’d sat and talked with him for five hours 56

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straight after they all came home from the funeral and finally ended up singing some ridiculous song from a Disney movie just to cheer him up. And all the while, Brett knew she must blame him for Charlie’s death. Just like their parents did. Brett’s mom and dad had never said anything like that to him, but he could tell. He saw it in their looks, heard it in their voices. They hated him for what happened to their firstborn son, and he knew Lily must hate him, too. But that was all right. No one could hate Brett more than he hated himself. Only one way to change that. I’ve got to see Charlie. That’s why he was doing all of this. Brett didn’t know if his Friend could really deliver on what he’d promised, but it was worth the risk of finding out. Passing up a chance—no matter how slim—of seeing Charlie again? That was something Brett couldn’t live with. Careful not to let anyone see what he was doing, Brett touched the lump on a chain under his shirt: the gold signet ring he’d taken from Gabe’s uncle’s office. That was what had started all this. Not the map. Not the friendship ritual. He’d found the ring before any of that. Brett had been poking through Dr. Conway’s bedroom one evening while the rest of them played Xbox. He’d found a tiny black box hidden inside a drawer, and it—he felt cheesy saying it—“called to 57

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him.” It wasn’t like Gollum’s “preciousssss.” But he opened the box, saw gold gleaming, and before he even knew what he was doing, the ring was in his pocket. A seagull flew past. Brett blinked at it and looked around the ferry. He felt his throat going hot; that familiar wet feeling in his eyes. He shook himself. Don’t think about being on the water, idiot. Just don’t think about it. To distract himself, he fingered the ring through his shirt, making out the lump of the signet, then the slim gold band. He didn’t dare take it out just then for fear Gabe would recognize it, but he’d spent enough hours staring at it to know its design by heart. Like a wheel, it was a circle divided by five spokes. Without the ring, he’d never have started having the dreams—the dreams that turned out to be all too real—and he’d never have met his Friend. He wouldn’t have gotten any of these instructions. Without the ring, he wouldn’t have any chance of talking to Charlie again. While Lily and Kaz kept up their chatter, which did seem to be taking Gabe’s mind off the domestic apocalypse he’d be facing when he got home, Brett reached into his backpack and, taking a deep breath, pulled out the Tablet. This time he was prepared for the rush of heat, but it wasn’t as overpowering as the first time, and his hands stayed steady. That’s when he realized that the Tablet wasn’t a solid slab of stone, but actually a kind of book sheathed in the strange, crystalline-green material. 58

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Thick, oddly durable-looking pages were bound inside it. His Friend wanted this thing pretty badly. What’s he going to do with it? How is this going to help me see Charlie again? Brett could only imagine. Brett would do anything to see his brother. Anything. Gabe’s voice pulled his attention away from the Tablet’s pages. “Brett! You stole that out of Uncle Steve’s office?” Brett could think of zero responses. He tried for a sheepish sort of grin but wasn’t sure how well he pulled it off. “Yeah, I guess I kind of did.” When Gabe just goggled at him, he went on: “This thing knocked us all out, didn’t it? I wanted to get a closer look.” Kaz crowded over his shoulder, peering at the pages. “I’d forgotten all about it. Now that you mention it, I remember we talked about it for a second, but it totally fell out of my head. How weird is that?” Lily came up behind Brett’s other shoulder. “I know what you mean. The whole thing in the office feels really hazy.” She frowned. “But how is that possible? It just happened.” Brett shrugged. Since he’d met his Friend, he’d learned that nearly anything was possible. Gabe frowned. “I just remember how angry Uncle Steve was. And still is. Jeez, this is only going to make it worse.” But he joined the others, trying to get a look at the Tablet. Brett had never seen script like the flowing letters that filled the Tablet’s thick, slightly yellowed pages. He had no idea 59

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what any of the symbols meant—but the ink was a brilliant, shimmering blue, so vivid the letters seemed to hover above the paper. The unnerving blue danced in Brett’s eyes . . . . . . and his gaze slid past the pages to the water rushing by below the ferry. A shiver started around his heart and spread out to the tips of his fingers and toes, all the way to the ends of every hair on his head. Brett’s hatred of water, revulsion at the mere sight of water, clanged inside his head like an alarm, and yet— And yet . . . Brett’s eyes widened. Shimmering blue words like waves danced between him and the water. Beyond them, Brett saw the water. For the first time, he really saw it. The tiny curls of the waves, the perfect snow-like whitecaps, the delicate whirlpools that appeared and vanished in the ferry’s wake. And if he concentrated, focused his will with enough force, he was sure he could see the flowing, shimmering words from the Tablet inscribing themselves onto the water itself. As if the water and the text were different voices but both singing the same song, in exquisite harmony. “What do you think made it change from gold to green like that?” Kaz’s voice, inquisitive as ever, snapped Brett out of his trance. Kaz went on. “And we couldn’t get it open before, right? Could we?” “Check out that funky lettering,” Gabe said, one finger hovering over the Tablet as if daring himself to touch the tip of 60

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a needle or an open flame. “I’ve never seen script like that. All sharp and angled. And how’d they get that shade of red? Looks like paint off a sports car.” Lily and Kaz exchanged glances, both of them frowning. Lily said, “Gabe, I think you might’ve hit your head harder than we thought. That lettering isn’t red. It’s white and silver. And it’s not pointy, either. It’s kind of swirly.” Kaz rolled his eyes. “Are we even looking at the same book? I don’t know what language that is, but all blocky like that, I wouldn’t even call it ‘script.’ Those symbols were stamped on there, like with a bunch of carved rocks or something.” When Gabe and Lily just stared blankly at him, Kaz finished with “And the ink is green. Okay, you guys are looking at me really weird. I don’t have a booger, do I?” The bay grabbed Brett’s attention, and he pushed his friends’ voices aside. Though it sang to him, he didn’t like the water. There was something tempting in the strange words that filled its every swell and whirl, but he also saw Charlie’s face disappearing under its waves, his brother’s mouth open in one last scream. Brett wanted to get off this boat and back onto land. The ferry was going fast, but he wanted to go faster. As far as he was concerned, they couldn’t get to Alcatraz soon enough. Faster, he thought, staring at the swirls of glyphs churning just below the cold surface. Faster. The bay drew him in again, and when he stared at it just right, the script beneath the surface coalesced 61

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into a single symbol. Round and flowing and . . . and powerful. Brett knew it. He could feel its power. Trying to cement this glyph in his mind, Brett traced the symbol in the air with his finger, and almost dropped the Tablet in shock when the symbol appeared in the air where he’ d traced it, lingering there as if he’d written on the wind itself, first blazing in a searing blue, then darkening into a deep, brilliant gold. Faster. There was a surge of pure velocity. Brett’s neck whiplashed at the unexpected speed. He tumbled to the deck with everyone else as a sudden wave lifted the ferry and sent it hurtling toward the rocky shore.

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