The Power of Six

pews. But when I go there, everything has already been cleaned.

“Have you seen Ella?” I ask a ten-year-old girl named Valentina. She shakes her head. I walk back to our bedroom, but there’s no sign of Ella there. I sit on her bed. The bounce of the mattress causes a silver object to peek from beneath Ella’s pillow. It’s a tiny flashlight. I flip it on. The light shines brightly. I turn it off and put it back where I found it so that the Sisters won’t see it.

I walk the halls, peeking in rooms as I go along. Because of the rain, most of the girls have stayed in, milling about in their small groups, laughing and talking and playing games.

On the second floor, where the hallway splits and leads to the church’s two separate wings, I go left, down a dark, dusty corridor. Empty rooms and ancient statues cut into the rock wall and arched ceiling, and I stick my head in the doorways, looking for Ella. No sign of her. The hallway narrows and the dusty odor segues to a damp, earthy smell. At the corridor’s end stands a padlocked oak door I jimmied open a week and a half ago looking for the Chest. Beyond the door is a stone stairway that circles around the narrow tower leading up to the north belfry, which holds one of Santa Teresa’s two bells. The Chest wasn’t there either.

I surf the internet for a while but find nothing new about John Smith. Then I go to the sleeping quarters, lie in bed, and feign sleep. Thankfully La Gorda, Gabby, and Delfina don’t come into the room, and I don’t see Ella either. I crawl from bed and walk down the hall.

I enter the nave and find Ella in the back pew. I sit beside her. She smiles up at me, looking tired. This morning I had put her hair into a ponytail, but now it’s come loose. I pull the band free, and Ella turns her head so I can redo it.

“Where have you been all day?” I ask. “I was looking for you.”

“I was exploring,” she says proudly. I instantly feel terrible all over again for ignoring her on our walks to school.

We leave and go to our room, say good night to one another. Slipping beneath the covers, waiting for the lights to be shut off, I feel hopeless and sad, wanting to simply crawl into a ball and cry. So that’s what I do.

I wake in the middle of the night and I can’t tell what time it is, though I assume I’ve slept at least a few hours. I roll over and close my eyes again, but something feels off. There’s some change in the room I can’t quite explain, and it amplifies the same anxiety I’ve felt all week.

I open my eyes again, and the second they adjust to the dark, I realize a face is staring at me. I gasp and bolt straight backwards, crashing into the wall behind me. I’m trapped, I think, trapped in the far, back corner. How stupid of me to have wanted this bed. My hands tighten, and just as I’m about to scream and kick at the face, I recognize the brown eyes.

Ella.

I instantly relax. I wonder how long she’s been standing there.

Very slowly she brings her tiny index finger to her lips. Then her eyes widen and she smiles as she leans forward. She cups her hand around my ear.

“I found the Chest,” she whispers.

I pull away, look earnestly into her radiant, upturned face, and know immediately she’s telling the truth. My own eyes widen. I can’t contain my excitement. I pull her to me and give her the tightest hug her small body can endure.

“Oh Ella, you have no idea how proud I am of you.”

“I told you I’d find it. I told you, because we’re a team and we help each other.”

“We do,” I whisper.

I let go of her. Her face brims with pride. “Come on. I’ll show you where it is.” She takes me by the hand, and I follow her around the bed, tiptoeing quietly.

The Chest-a bright ray of hope when I’d least expected it, when I’d needed it most.

Chapter Sixteen

WE FLEE THE ROOM, AND I HAVE THE URGE TO sprint to wherever Ella’s leading me. She glides swiftly and soundlessly across the cold floor. The corridor is dark; and while I see everything clearly, every so often Ella flicks on the flashlight to orient herself, then quickly turns it off.

When we reach the nave I think she’s going to head towards the north tower, but she doesn’t, and instead guides me up the center aisle. We skitter past the rows of pews. At the nave’s front, stained glass saints line the curved wall and the moonlight behind them brings a celestial radiance that gives each a more biblical appearance than they’ve ever had before. Water drips in a constant patter somewhere.

Ella cuts a right turn at the front pew and sweeps towards one of the many open recesses that run the length of both walls. I follow. The air is cooler here than in the nave, and a tall statue of the Virgin Mary looms over us with arms lifted from her sides. Ella goes around her, and when she reaches the back left corner, she turns to me.

“I’ll have to bring it down to you,” she says, putting the flashlight in her mouth. She takes hold of the stone pillar and scoots up it like a squirrel clawing up a tree. All I can do is watch in amazement, so impressed by her mobility.

When she’s almost at the ceiling, she pauses and then swings around the column, disappearing into a tight little nook that’s almost invisible from where I stand.

I never noticed the nook before. Lord knows how Ella did. I crane my head to listen, hearing the rough friction of her shoes scrape along the rock, which means there’s just enough room for her to crawl. Some kind of tunnel. I can’t help but smile. I knew the Chest was here, somewhere, but I would have never found it in a million years if it weren’t for Ella. I laugh at the thought of Adelina scaling the same column with the Chest so many years ago. Ella has stopped; I hear nothing. Twenty seconds pass.

“Ella,” I whisper. She sticks her head out and looks down. “Should I come up?”

She shakes her head. “It’s stuck, but I almost have it. I’ll bring it down to you in a minute,” she whispers back, and then yanks her head back in and disappears. I can’t take the suspense of not knowing what’s going on up there. I look at the base of the column and take hold of it; and just before I’m about to try climbing it, I hear a noise behind me that sounds like somebody kicking a pew. I spin around. The Virgin Mary blocks my view. I walk around her and scan the nave, but I don’t see anything.

“I got it!” I hear Ella exclaim.

I rush back around the statue and look up, waiting for her to appear. I can hear her grunt and struggle to drag the Chest to the nook’s opening, and I have no idea if it’s because the Chest is heavy or because the tunnel is so narrow. Little by little the dragging continues. I feel nothing short of ecstasy at finally having the Chest in my possession, and I don’t even consider the problem of getting it open. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Just as Ella is almost to the opening, I hear something else behind me.

“What are you doing up?”

I whip around. Divided equally on each side of the Virgin Mary, Gabby and Delfina stand under the statue’s left arm while La Gorda and a wiry Bonita, the champion of the dock game that almost got me killed at the lake, position themselves beneath the right arm.

I glance over my shoulder and see two small eyes peering down at us from the nook’s opening.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“I wanted to see what the little tattletale was up to, that’s all. You know, it’s funny because I saw you sneak out of the room and I thought that I would get up and finally see what it was you’re always looking at on the computer, but you weren’t there.” Gabby paints a sarcastic, confused look on her face. “You were in here, which is really weird.”

“Really weird. It’s really weird,” La Gorda says. To my relief, I don’t hear Ella dragging the Chest anymore.

“Why do you even care?” I say. “Seriously. All I ever do is keep to myself and keep my mouth shut.”

“I care a lot about you, Marina,” Gabby says, stepping forward. She flips her long dark hair. “In fact, I care so much that I worry about you hanging out with that loser drunk, Hector, all the time. Do you get drunk with him?”