As it happens, an identical square of chocolate was now sitting on a white plate in the middle of the table. To be exact, three identical squares of chocolate. The only bits of color in the otherwise all-white room.
“Finally some chocolate we can really eat!” said Yo-Yoji, immediately approaching the table. “And there’s even three of them…”
Max-Ernest looked askance at the chocolates. “Are you sure you should…?”
Cass shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about stealing from the Midnight Sun? Why is this different from the flavors?”
“I don’t know, it’s just strange that they’re sitting out there like that. It looks like they’re waiting for somebody. Whoever it is could come in any second and if the chocolate’s missing, they’ll know somebody’s here. Plus, we don’t know what’s in it!”
Cass considered, then turned to Yo-Yoji. “He’s right. It is the Midnight Sun after all. They could be using these to poison people or something…”
“I don’t care, I’m starving!” Yo-Yoji popped one of the chocolates in his mouth.
His friends watched anxiously.
His eyes widened. “Oh no!” He clutched his throat and made gagging sounds. “I think I’m chok—”
Then he burst into laughter. “Just kidding. Actually, it’s amazing. Usually, I like milk chocolate, not dark chocolate. But that was the best I ever had. Seriously. Kind of like the mud flavor, but in a good way.”
“Well, I can’t have it anyway ’cause of my allergy,” said Max-Ernest, unconvinced.
“Good, more for me. Cass, you gonna have yours?” Yo-Yoji asked, licking chocolate off the corner of his mouth.
Cass eyed the chocolate, trying to resist.
Then she nodded. She was too hungry to say no.
Max-Ernest watched, torn between jealousy and concern, as Cass devoured her piece of chocolate. She looked blissful.
“Wow, that was really… good.”
“Man, I wish there were more,” said Yo-Yoji, finishing Max-Ernest’s piece.
“Me, too. Maybe if we look—” Cass spun around, scanning the room.
Yo-Yoji nodded. “Yeah… Hai!”
“What?” Cass turned back to him, staggering a bit. “Whoa—that made me kind of dizzy.”
“Hai!” Yo-Yoji repeated.
Eyes rolling up into his head, he lurched forward and raised his right hand, clutching at the air.
“Yo-Yoji… are you OK?” asked Cass, still struggling to stand up straight. “Or are you joking around again?”
Yo-Yoji responded with more guttural sounds.
His eyes now closed, he kept moving his arm around as if he were wielding a weapon. He seemed to be in some kind of combat stance.
“I think he’s speaking Japanese,” said Max-Ernest, staring at their friend. “And maybe having a samurai sword fight…?”
“But Yo-Yoji doesn’t know Japanese. He only lived in Japan for a year…” She trailed off, her eyes glazing. She teetered on her feet.
Distressed, Max-Ernest reached for her. “Cass?”
“Mmm.” She murmured to herself, barely conscious. Max-Ernest had to use all his strength to hold her up.
“Yo-Yoji, help me!”
But far from being able to help, Yo-Yoji was groaning and clutching his side, as if fatally wounded.
Max-Ernest was becoming frantic. “Cass, wake up! You, too, Yo-Yoji!”
“Wake up… wake up…,” Cass repeated vaguely.
“If you guys are playing a joke, I think you should stop now,” said Max-Ernest. But they took no notice.
As Max-Ernest watched in horror, Yo-Yoji fell to the floor, writhing in pain.
Meanwhile, Cass continued to babble incoherently. Until Max-Ernest could hold her no longer, and she, too, fell to the floor, unconscious.
Before Max-Ernest could decide what to do, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Wildly, he looked around: there was only one exit—and it was in the direction the footsteps were coming from. There was no way he would be able to get out in time, let alone hide his friends.
Just over his head, sticking out of the wall, was a large grate. Gritting his teeth, he pried it open with his fingernails, revealing a dark air shaft. He pushed the grate into the air shaft, then pulled his gray tunic over his head and tossed it in with the grate; he didn’t think he’d be able to fit through the opening otherwise.
Using all his strength, he was just able to pull himself up into the air shaft and replace the grate before Señor Hugo, Dr. L, and Ms. Mauvais strode into the Tasting Room. Three white-tunic-and-white-glove-wearing Midnight Sun acolytes followed in their wake.
Oh no, Max-Ernest despaired. He could see the room’s new occupants only in bits and pieces—but those bits and pieces were more than enough.
Cass and Yo-Yoji were still moaning on the floor, Yo-Yoji murmuring in Japanese, Cass in some older, Renaissance-sounding version of English. Oddly, the newcomers didn’t appear very surprised to see them.
“It seems the boy must have some samurai in his blood,” said Dr. L. “But what of the girl? Is that her awful ancestor speaking through her?”
Ms. Mauvais smiled one of her almost-smiles. “Let us hope so.”
Max-Ernest shivered, but was uncertain himself whether it was from hearing Ms. Mauvais speak, or from the whoosh of the air being sucked in through the vent.
With a chill he realized where he was: in an air filtration system. Forget the chocolate particles. All the dust in the room would be sucked through the grate in front of him. Horrified, he imagined hundreds of thousands of dust mites flying into his nostrils…
Unfortunately, there was no getting out at the moment. He lifted his shirt to cover his nose; it was all he could do to protect himself from the army of invading allergens.
Dr. L leaned down and felt each of the kids’ pulses in turn. He lifted their eyelids and opened their mouths, examining their reaction to the chocolate.
“I expect they will survive,” he said over his shoulder. “But in what condition I don’t know.”
“Where is the other one? The boy with two names?” asked Señor Hugo.
Ms. Mauvais snorted. “Max-Ernest? There’s no need to worry about him. He’s helpless on his own.”
Listening through the grate, Max-Ernest grimaced, insulted.
“Besides, his chocolate is gone. Wherever he is, he’ll lose consciousness soon. Somebody will find him. It’s the girl we want.”
“Maybe what you and I want are not the same,” said Señor Hugo.
“Who cares what you want?” Ms. Mauvais snapped. “If we do not find the Secret today, a great man will die!”
Ms. Mauvais motioned to her white-gloved henchmen. “Take the Japanese boy out of here—but leave the girl on the table.”
While Yo-Yoji was carried out, the unconscious Cass was laid out on her back on the marble table, as if she were about to be carved up and eaten for dinner.
Ms. Mauvais approached, and with her gloved hand pushed another square of chocolate between Cass’s lips.
“The Secret—what is the Secret?” Ms. Mauvais whispered. “We know you know it…”
As she spoke, Ms. Mauvais’s breath fell on Cass like a morning frost. Cass’s face grew paler and paler, and her ears turned a purple that bordered on blue.
* * *
Up in the air shaft, Max-Ernest frowned. Was it possible Cass knew the Secret and had never told him? How could she keep something like that to herself? Then again, she hadn’t told him about her mother being kidnapped. What other secrets might she hold?
He stared down at her, wondering if his best friend had just become a stranger.
She was in a tent. An old canvas tent that had been mended one too many times. Moonlight shone through the rips in the fabric, and a cold wind blew in from some faraway place, freezing the tips of her ears.
An oil lamp sat on the earthen floor, its weak flame flickering in the wind. Next to the lamp, an old man
lay on a bed of hay. He wore a fraying old cap from which hung tarnished silver bells.
He coughed. She leaned down and touched his cheek.
“Grandfather, you are cold. I must get you out of this… this carnival tent and take you somewhere where there is a proper bed and a fire.”
Grandfather? Why had she called him that? He wasn’t one of her grandfathers—he was much older.… Unless… was she in… the future…?
Whoever he was, he raised his head in anger. “Carnival tent? What you call a carnival, I call my castle. Though its walls be ripped, I would not be ripped from it! We fall together, the tent and I.”
His head fell back into the hay; he had exhausted himself.
“Let me at least remove this old hat and wrap you in something warm. I have a scarf…”
She started to lift his hat, revealing his pale, pointy ears, remarkably similar to Cass’s own (save for the long, gray hairs sticking out of them). He stopped her with a brush of the hand.
“But this is my jester’s cap, the crown of my jokingdom!” said the old man. “I would die without it. And I must die within it!”
“Very well,” she said wearily. “But please. No more talk of death, Grandfather. I will not listen.”
The Jester. The old man was the Jester… So then she was in the past…
Or dreaming of it anyway…
But then who was she…? The Jester’s granddaughter. That would make her what… her own grandmother? No. More like great-great-great-grandmother.
“Do not try to protect me, my love,” said the Jester. “Death is like an old dog. He always knows when you are at his door.”
“And no more of your riddles either! I cannot bear them now.”
“You think it best that I do not jest. Yet I cannot be grave. How then should I behave?”
“I think it best… that you rest. I do not want you to catch plague. It is all over this wretched country.”
“You and your disasters. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Plagues. You cannot be prepared for everything, you know.”
“And what is the harm in trying?”
“Enough—I do not want to argue. You are what I treasure most, so it is to you I must give my treasure.”
She started to cry, shedding the tears she had been holding back. “But I do not want your gold. I want only for you to live.”
“Oh, there is no gold, I speak of something you cannot hold.”
“What is it?”
“Something that cannot be told.”
“Grandfather!” she groaned. “Tell me what it is. Or go to sleep.”
“I just told you. It is something that cannot be told.”
“It is a secret?”
He nodded, pleased. “Very good, my child. It is indeed a secret.”
Now they were outside. In a meadow. The sun shone bright in the sky, turning the tall grass gold.
Although it was midday, her skin felt cool, as if it were evening. A breeze ruffled her hair, but she did not feel it.
The Jester was still with her. But now his hat was plush and plum-purple, its silver bells bright and sparkling like diamonds. Curly hair sprung out from under the hat and bounced around his pink cheeks and mischievous grin.
Behind them was his tent, also looking shiny and new, its red and white stripes rippling, its gold flag waving.
“What secret, Grandfather?”
“Grandfather?” The Jester laughed. “But I have yet no children! Would you have me miss being a father altogether, and skip to the grand finale?”
He did a back flip in the grass, showing off his youth and vigor. The bells on his hat tinkled merrily.
“What secret, Jester?”
“The Secret. The secret of secrets…”
They were at Cass’s school now. On the schoolyard. She recognized the handball courts. And Mrs. Johnson’s School Clean-Up Campaign posters. But they were alone; the school must have been closed.
The Jester was an old man again, but not yet bedridden. He was standing with his arm over her shoulder, supporting himself. His tent, once more in tatters, stood lopsided beside them on the asphalt.
“The Secret of the Terces Society?”
“The Secret does not belong to the Terces Society.”
“You know what I mean,” she said impatiently. “Is that the secret you’re talking about?”
He shrugged. “Is that the secret you wish to know most in the world?”
“Yes. No. What I want to know most is… who are my parents…? No, forget that—where is my mother? That’s what I need to know now. Is she OK? Can you help me find her?”
“Ah, but I cannot help you with that. She is of your time. To find your mother, you must wake up.”
“Then can you at least tell me…” She didn’t know how to phrase it.
“You wish to know who you are?”
“Yes. Who am I?”
“Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? To learn the Secret you must first learn your Secret.”
Cass tossed and turned, thrashing around on the hard cold surface, between wake and sleep.
Who am I? Who am I? What had the Jester just said? It was right there in the back of her head but she couldn’t hold on to it.
“Drink, Cassandra! Drink!” said a rough and unfriendly voice. Señor Hugo. “This is the antidote. Without it, you may never regain consciousness.”
His gloved hand poured some kind of milky liquid down her throat. It was chalky-tasting and made her cough, but she managed to drink most of it.
“Allow me.” Still barely conscious, Cass felt a familiar chill coming from the other side of the table. Ms. Mauvais.
“I have a more old-fashioned remedy. But perhaps more effective… Cass, wake up!” Ms. Mauvais’s gloved hand slapped her in the face—it stung.
“The Secret. Tell it to me. Quickly—”
“I can’t remember…,” Cass moaned. The milky liquid dribbled down her chin.
“You must remember.”
Cass opened her eyes.
She had a piercing headache and her stomach was in revolt. But it was the sight of Ms. Mauvais leaning over her that caused Cass to regurgitate Señor Hugo’s antidote—right onto Ms. Mauvais’s pristine white glove.
“Disgusting!” exclaimed Ms. Mauvais. “You are as rude as the Jester.”
Cass gasped. “How do you know about the Jester?”
Ms. Mauvais was about to pull off her soiled glove, then seemed to think better of it. She put out her hand and one of her henchmen handed her a towel.
“Never mind how I know,” she said, wiping furiously. “You were with him just now, weren’t you? Don’t lie—I can see it in your eyes. What did he tell you—? He told you the Secret, didn’t he?”
“Where’s my mother? I want to see my mother.”
“Tell me the Secret and you will see your mother.”
“I don’t know the Secret!”
“Liar!”
Cass retched again in answer.
“Darling, please,” said Dr. L, resting his own gloved hand on her bony shoulder. “Give the girl a second.”
“Very well. I will wait until she collects herself.”
Ms. Mauvais motioned to the henchman to mop up the mess.
“You disappoint me, Cassandra—I thought you’d be harder to catch. Those little chocolates—like cheese in a mousetrap. To think you’d fall for something so simple!”
“The chocolate was… a trap?” Cass asked feebly.
“Naturally. You didn’t think you could step onto this plantation without our knowing, did you? Or did you think my monkey was just being friendly?”
“You mean, you sent him for us?” She was still feeling too sick to be very upset.
“The mochachins are very highly trained, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“So you saw us enter the rainforest?”
“The rainforest?” Ms. Mauvais laughed her icy laugh. “Yes, we saw you enter the rainforest. We saw you enter the park. We saw you get on the t
rain. We’ve been watching from the beginning. Did you not remember that we know where you live?”
“So you… wanted us to come?”
“Who do you think left the We magazine on your grandfathers’ doorstep? You should know by now there are no coincidences—especially lucky ones. Although, I admit, your acquiring the Tuning Fork for us was an unexpected bonus. We would have found it eventually, but you certainly helped. Thank you.”
“You’re not welcome.”
“You, Cassandra—you’ve been a thorn in my side since I first laid eyes on you. But now you’re going to be the solution to all my problems. There’s a kind of poetic justice to it, don’t you think?”
“How am I the solution?”
“Because of who you are…”
“What do you know about me?”
“Only everything. What do you think I’ve been doing since our last precious moments together? Once I realized who you were I started learning all I could… Would you like to know who your parents are? Tell me the Secret, and you’ll find out.”
Cass hesitated, beginning to remember snippets of her conversation with the Jester. “I don’t care who they are,” she said, not quite honestly. “Just let my mother go.”
“Very well, as you wish. We’ll release that poor woman you call your mother—when you tell me the Secret.”
“I told you—I don’t know the Secret. I can’t even remember what he said… And even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you!” said Cass, finally feeling strong enough to sit up.
Was that true? she wondered. She wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was best that she didn’t know the Secret after all.
“I think I’ll put you in one of the old animal cages for a while,” said Ms. Mauvais. “Let’s see if sleeping on a cement floor helps you remember… Hugo, work on your recipe. The chocolate is not strong enough!”
She nodded to one of her acolytes, who then threw Cass roughly over his shoulder and followed Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L out of the room. Clenching his fist, Hugo exited as well.
After the Tasting Room had been empty for a few minutes, Max-Ernest, his T-shirt still covering his nose, pushed the grate out. Before he could grab it, the grate dropped out of the opening and fell noisily to the floor.
Max-Ernest froze, ready for the worst. But when nobody came he gingerly let himself out of the air shaft.