Chests, then they’d give you something to communicate with each other. Right? Maybe we just unlocked the key somehow, and we’ve got the location of someone who needs our help,” he says.
“Or maybe one of the others is getting tortured and they’re being forced to contact us and it’s a trap,” Six says.
Just as I’m about to agree, the edges of Earth grow fuzzy and then the entire globe vibrates with a female voice that says, “Adelina! ?Despierta! ?Despierta, por favor! Adelina!”
I’m about to yell back, but the globe suddenly shrinks, re-forms into the seven orbs and returns to normal.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What just happened?” I ask.
“I’d say the signal has been cut,” Sam says.
“Who was that girl? And who’s Adelina?” Six asks.
I catch the stone after it bounces off the ninth stair, but no matter what I do it doesn’t glow like it did before. I shake it in my palm. I blow on it. I set it in Adelina’s open hand. It doesn’t change from its new faint blue color, and I’m worried I broke it. I carefully set it back inside the Chest and pick up the short tree branch.
With a deep breath, I stick the branch out one of the two windows and I concentrate on the opposite end. There’s a bit of a magnetic force happening; but before I can really test it or figure it out, I hear the oak door at the bottom of the tower creak open.
Chapter Twenty-One
WHILE WE DRIVE, I TRY A FEW MORE TIMES TO regain the signal with the globes, but every time I get the solar system up and running they just orbit like normal. It’s almost midnight and I’m about to rifle through the other stones and objects in my Chest, but it’s then I see the scattered lights of a town on the horizon. A sign passes on my right just like it did a few months ago when Henri was behind the wheel:
WELCOME TO PARADISE, OHIO
POPULATION 5,243
“Welcome home,” Sam whispers.
I press my forehead against the window and recognize a dilapidated barn, an old sign for apples, a green pickup still for sale. A warm feeling comes over my entire body. Of all the places I’ve ever lived, Paradise has been my favorite. It’s where I made my first best friend. It’s where I developed my first Legacy. It’s where I fell in love. But Paradise was also where I met my first Mogadorians. Where I had my first real battle and felt real pain. It’s the place where Henri died.
Bernie Kosar jumps onto the seat next to me, and his tail wags at an amazing rate. He shoves his nose through the small crack in his window, and he sniffs furiously at the familiar air.
As we take the first side road on the left and make several more turns, backtracking here and there, making sure we’re not being followed, finding the best and least conspicuous place to leave the SUV, we go over the plan once more.
“After we get the transmitter we go right back to the car and we leave Paradise immediately,” Six says. “Right?”
“Right,” I say.
“We don’t make contact with
I know she’s referring to Sarah, and I bite my lip. Finally after all these weeks on the run, I’m back in Paradise and I’m told I can’t see Sarah.
“Got it, John? We leave? Right away?”
“Lay off already. I know what you’re getting at.”
“Sorry.”
Sam parks the SUV on a dark street under a maple tree two miles from his house. My shoes drop to the asphalt, my lungs take their first real breath of Paradise air and I instantly want to go back to how it was, back to Halloween, back to coming home to Henri, back to sitting on my couch next to Sarah.
We don’t take any chances of losing my Chest in an unguarded car, so Six opens the back door and lugs it onto her shoulder. Once comfortable, she makes herself invisible.
“Wait,” I say. “I want something out of there first. Six?”
Six reappears and I open the Chest and retrieve the dagger, slipping it into the back pocket of my jeans. “Okay. Now I’m ready. Bernie Kosar, buddy, are you ready?”
Bernie Kosar transforms into a small brown owl, and he flaps his way onto a low branch of the maple tree.
“Let’s do this already.” Six picks up my Chest and disappears again.
Then we run. With Sam trailing at a good pace, I jump a fence and pick up speed on the edge of the nearest field. After a half mile, I’m veering into the forest, loving the way the branches break off my chest and arms, how the tall patches of grass whip my jeans. I look over my shoulder often, and Sam is never farther than forty yards behind me, jumping over logs, sliding under branches. There is a noise beside me, but before I can reach for my dagger Six whispers that it’s just her. I see a swatch of grass part down the middle and I follow.
Luckily, Sam lives on the outskirts of Paradise with large yards separating each neighbor. I stop just inside the lip of the forest when his house comes into view. It’s a small, modest house with white aluminum siding and black shingles, a thin chimney on its right side, a tall wooden fence enclosing the backyard. Six materializes and sets down my Chest.
“That it?” she asks.
“That’s it.”
Thirty seconds later, Bernie Kosar lands on my shoulder. Four minutes go by until Sam lumbers through a line of brush and stands next to us, out of breath, his palms planted firmly on his thighs. He looks up at his house in the distance.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Like a fugitive. Like a bad son.”
“Think about how proud your dad would be if we pull this off,” I say.
Six turns herself invisible to run reconnaissance, checking the shadows of the nearby houses, the backseats of every car on the street. She returns and says everything looks okay, but there are some motion sensor lights on the house on the right. Bernie Kosar flies away, perching himself on the highest point of the roof.
Six grabs Sam’s hand and they turn invisible. I tuck the Chest under my arm and quietly follow them to the back fence. They reappear, and Six goes over first, then Sam. I toss the Chest over and climb quickly after. We duck behind an overgrown shrub, and I survey the backyard and its trees, high grass, a big tree stump, a rusty swing set, and an antique wheelbarrow on its side. There’s a back door on the left side of the house and two dark windows on the right.
“There it is,” Sam whispers, pointing.
What I first thought was a tree stump peeking out of the middle of the yard is actually, upon closer inspection, a wide stone cylinder. Squinting, I see a triangular object sticking up off its top.
“We’ll be right back,” Six whispers to Sam.
My hand in Six’s, I turn invisible and say, “Okay, Eagle Goode. Guard that Chest as if my life depends on it. Because it does.”
Six and I carefully walk through the high grass towards the well, and then kneel in front of it. Numbers border the circumference of the sundial-one through twelve on the left side and another one through twelve on the right, zero at the top-and the numbers are surrounded by a series of lines. I’m about to grip the middle triangle and twist randomly when I hear Six gasp.
“What?” I whisper, raising my eyes to the dark back windows.
“In the middle. Look. The symbols.”
I study the sundial again, and my breath is caught in my throat. They’re faint and easy to overlook, but in the middle of the circle are nine shallow Loric symbols. I recognize the numbers one through three because they
