The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

“Forget the hinges,” said Reynie.

“He’s got it!” cried Constance, who’d been watching his face.

“Got what?” said Milligan. He hadn’t seen Reynie stir an inch except to glance around at the other doorways.

Reynie paused, blinking — he was still unused to Constance’s keen perception — then shook his head and knelt by the doorstop. “This is the most awkwardly placed doorstop in history, don’t you think? Not to mention the only one in the house. It reminds me of that table in the hotel room — and I think it was meant to. Here, Kate, help me pry it up.”

Kate opened her Swiss Army knife and pried the doorstop loose. It turned out to be a hollow piece of wood, and tucked inside it was a note that read:

If you seek to reach us soon,

Peek beneath the town’s twin moon.

“Another riddle,” Sticky said with a grimace. “I was hoping for a map.”

“Maybe the next one’s a map,” Kate said. She read the clue again. “Or maybe there’s a secret passageway beneath this twin moon thing.”

“Or a trail that starts at that spot,” Reynie suggested.

“Whatever,” said Constance, “let’s just hurry up and find it. What is this twin moon?”

They all looked to Sticky, who shrugged regretfully. “I’ve never heard of a such a thing.”

“Mr. Benedict’s a twin,” Reynie said. “Maybe he’s referring to himself as ‘the town’s twin.’ But then what would the moon be?”

No one knew.

“It may be more straightforward than that,” Milligan said. “Maybe one of the buildings used to be a tavern or an inn. The Twin Moon sounds like a name for that kind of place. We should look around for an old sign, or an engraving on a door, or some other kind of symbol.” He was already heading downstairs, but halfway down he stopped and cocked his head.

The children had moved to follow him, but Milligan shot them a warning glance and laid a finger to his lips. Had his expression not frozen them in their tracks, the scuffling sound they heard now would have. Footsteps. The sound grew louder, then stopped. There was someone at the front door. Milligan took out his tranquilizer gun.

Suddenly Constance gasped. “Milligan, don’t! It’s —”

Even as she cried out the door flew open, a figure burst into the front room, and only Constance’s warning and Milligan’s quick reflexes spared the intruder a dart in the shoulder.

“— Number Two!” Constance finished.

Kate shone her flashlight down the stairs, and sure enough, there was Number Two, looking up at them from where she’d fallen onto her hands and knees. She squinted into the flashlight beam with wild, disoriented eyes.

“Constance?” she said, for it was Constance who had called out her name. “Have I — have I come home then? And here I . . .” Number Two chuckled weakly. “Here I thought . . . Oh, Constance, thank goodness! I was dreaming I was still on that terrible island!”

Sentries on the Silo

Number Two was delirious from hunger and exhaustion. Mr. Curtain hadn’t realized how much food she required, and she had deliberately not told him she needed more, for in order to convince him she would have had to explain why. And there was no way Number Two would reveal that she needed an enormous amount of fuel to compensate for how little she slept, because it was her near-constant wakefulness that allowed her to work away at the fastening pin in her handcuffs, hour after hour and night after night, while everyone else slept.

“Mr. Benedict kept trying to give me some of his food,” Number Two said as Reynie spooned cold soup into her mouth. She coughed, and most of it dribbled down her chin. “I wouldn’t take it. He had little enough. I’m afraid he was angry with me for refusing him. I hope he isn’t still angry. Is he?” She looked at Reynie with worried eyes.

“Of course not,” Reynie soothed. “He never was.”

Milligan had carried Number Two to a first-floor bedroom, easing her onto a rope bed that Kate had covered with a blanket. Her skin had lost its pale yellow hue (it looked positively waxen in the lantern light); her clothes were wrinkled and soiled; and her short-cropped red hair looked frazzled, like an old shag carpet. Even after she had eaten a bit, the poor woman was quite out of her head. The only thing Milligan felt certain about was that she had escaped while her captors were sleeping. When asked where she’d been held prisoner, Number Two had waved her hand as if shooing a fly and said, “Oh, you know, in that cave on the island.” They asked her several times, and in several different ways, but she would be no more specific than that, and after a few minutes she slipped into a fitful doze.

“Keep an eye on her,” Milligan said solemnly. “I’ll be right back.” He patted Number Two on the knee and went out.

Constance watched him go. “He sure seems grim. But isn’t it good news that she’s escaped? And didn’t he say she was going to be all right? And now we know that Mr. Benedict really is okay, so . . .” She turned to the others, who averted their eyes. “Hey, you all look grim, too. What’s going on?”

After a pause, Reynie said, “Whoever was guarding Number Two will wake up and find her gone. If it hasn’t already happened, it certainly will by morning.”

“Which means they’ll come looking for her,” Kate said.

“And find us,” said Sticky, who had begun to polish his spectacles.