“What’s so special about this old thing?” I said. Murray shushed me and leaned down. Gently, reverently, he pulled the velvet pillow aside and crawled through the link.
I followed on my hands and knees—there was barely enough room to squeeze in—and immediately banged my head on something hard.
“Ouch!” I dropped flat, rubbing my skull. “Murray, what is this?”
“Easy!” said Murray. “Stop moving or you’ll damage it. Just hold still until I’m out, then come through on your right.”
I heard shuffling ahead of me, then footsteps. There was a whooshing noise, and a dim light appeared. I slithered awkwardly toward it and emerged, covered in dust, from under what turned out to be a dirty, broken-down sofa the same color as the ancient pillow.
“Whew!” I said, brushing myself off. “That was dramatic. Where are we now?”
We were in a small, old-fashioned room. Sunlight streamed through a delicate window high on the wall, lighting up the dust in the air from the velvet curtains Murray had just pulled open. The room looked as if it had once been fancy, with paneled-wood walls, a patterned-marble floor, and a heavy carved door opposite the window, but it had definitely seen better days.
So had the poor sofa. It was battered and worn, with a dust sheet dumped over one end and big chunks of fabric missing from the cushion running across the seat. The frame was sagging on the left side, which explained why I’d cracked my head crawling under it.
I looked around for any clues about our exact location, but there was only the sofa, the curtains, and a heavy-looking key hanging on a hook beside the door. I turned to Murray.
“Welcome, Maggie Hetzger,” Murray said mysteriously, “to where it all began.” He spread his hands wide. “Welcome to the palace of Versailles.”
I blinked. “The what of the what-now?”
“The palace. Of Versailles.”
“Vair-sigh? That sounds kind of French.”
“It is French.” Murray reached up and pulled off his silver sunglasses. He looked much younger without them. His eyes were hazel with very pale lashes. “Weren’t you wondering why the sun was already up?” He pointed to the window. “We’re nine hours ahead of Seattle, Maggie Hetzger. We’re in France.”
Nine
I gaped at him.
“We are in France?” I pointed at the marble floor. “We are in a palace, in France, right now?”
“Yup,” said Murray. “The world is full of wonders, eh?”
I probably shouldn’t have been so shocked, seeing as I’d just linked up to Alaska a few hours before, but that was somewhere it was technically possible to drive to. Linking across the ocean? That was a whole other pile of pillows.
I stared around the dingy room. A palace? This? I guess it could have been. Not that I’d ever been in one before. Not outside my games, anyway.
“Okay, so why are we here?” I said, but just then a gaggle of grown-up voices rose on the other side of the door, headed our way. Murray’s eyes went wide. He held a finger to his lips. I nodded.
The voices stopped right outside the room. One voice rose above the others, a woman speaking in superfast French. It sounded like she was explaining something, like a tour guide.
The woman switched to English with a heavy French accent, and my suspicions were confirmed.
“So, as before I will repeat for our guests who do not have French. This room is one of the favorite mysteries of Versailles. It is called le Petit Salon, or the Little Room. It was shut and locked nearly three hundred years ago in the time of Louis the Fifteenth and has never been opened since.”
There was a murmur from the crowd, and the door handle wiggled as though the tour guide were trying it out. A burst of panic arced through me, but thankfully she was right about it being locked.
Someone in the group called out something I couldn’t catch.
“No,” said the woman, “no, there is no key. Every key in Versailles has been tried, and it is presumed that the key to this door must have been long ago lost.”
My eyes jumped to the key hanging beside the door. I turned to Murray, my eyebrows raised, and pointed at it. He smiled.
“This room,” the tour guide went on, “is believed to have been the favorite playroom of the young prince who would soon become the young king Louis the Fifteenth. Authorities on the palace history are assuring us there is nothing of value inside and that it is, in fact, likely to be empty. Of course, some are keeping other, more exciting theories. No one is knowing anything for certain, and with the door locked, the mystery must remain unknown as long as the palace of Versailles stands.”
More murmurs from the crowd, some sounding amused, others puzzled. One distinctly American voice bawled out, “So why not just bust the door down?”
Several people tittered. The tour guide coughed meaningfully.
“The people of France, monsieur, are believing there are some mysteries that are worth preserving. But now, on!” She clapped her hands, fell back into rapid-fire French, and led the group of chattering grown-ups away.
I turned to Murray. “Louis the Fifteenth?”
“Louis the Fifteenth,” said Murray. “He became king when he was only five, and this is where he played when he was allowed to be a kid. But what really makes it special is that this is the home of the first-ever linked pillow fort. This sofa”—he pointed—“in this room”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“is the center and source of it all.”
He paused for effect. Dust motes spun and shimmered through a sunbeam above his head. I couldn’t help feeling a little shiver.
“Cool,” I said. “And you know that how, exactly?”
“Research,” said Murray, returning to normal with a grin. “Our records aren’t perfect, but we know that King Louis was nine when he got this sofa as a gift from an unknown ambassador. And before you ask, we don’t know who. That part is still a total mystery.
“Louis liked the sofa, and he had
