The Name of This Book Is Secret Read online

  She had to rescue Benjamin Blake. But how?

  Not with any help from principals or policemen.

  And definitely not with any help from a certain nonstop talking boy.

  The obvious step was to go to the Midnight Sun herself. But how would she get there? No way would her grandfathers take her. Not if it meant her skipping school and their risking the wrath of her mother.

  Besides, even if she could get to the Midnight Sun, how would she get into the Midnight Sun? She wasn’t a celebrity and she didn’t have a royal title; she was just a kid. And kids didn’t usually go to spas.

  Except maybe for kids like Amber.

  What would Amber do if she wanted to get in?

  When Cass got off the bus, she had an inspiration.

  Before she could change her mind, she pulled the old guidebook out of her backpack, and looked up the Midnight Sun’s phone number. Then she dialed it on her cell phone. She could hardly believe what she was doing, and she had that giddy, dizzy feeling you get when you make a crank call—only this was much scarier.

  To her relief, a machine picked up. “You have reached the Midnight Sun Sensorium and Spa,” said an unmistakable, icy voice. “Please leave a message if you are ready to say good-bye to the old you, and hello to the new.”

  Cass shuddered, remembering what the magician had written about Ms. Mauvais making him feel as if he were drowning in the coldest water on Earth. Cass might not be synesthetic but she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “Hello. This is...this is one of the Skelton Sisters. I’d like to make a reservation to stay at the Midnight Sun.”

  She left her number. Then she dropped the phone onto the floor, wondering whether Max-Ernest wasn’t right, after all. Maybe she was crazy.

  It took her a couple seconds to realize her phone was ringing.

  Holding her breath, she picked up the phone and held it several inches away from her ear as if it were a particularly lethal kind of snake.

  “Hello,” Ms. Mauvais tinkled on the other end. “How wonderful to hear from a Skelton Sister! To whom am I speaking, may I ask? Romi or Montana?”

  “Um, neither,” said Cass, thinking quickly. “I’m the other one.”

  “Oh, there’s another? I had no idea.”

  “Yes, my name is Amber. I’m the youngest. They keep me hidden. But I’m famous also,” Cass explained. (She was glad she’d practiced lying on her mother.)

  “Oh, you’re one of those secret celebrities? My favorite kind. Being in the public eye is so tiresome, don’t you think?” Ms. Mauvais inquired.

  “Yes. That’s why I want to stay at the Midnight Sun. I hear it’s very private. And all your treatments—I hear they’re all really great. I know it’s hard to get a reservation. But I thought maybe since I’m a celebrity—”

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” said Ms. Mauvais with a light laugh.

  “Yeah, I do,” said Cass, not about to admit that that was all she knew.

  “Well, you’re in luck. It just so happens we have an opening this evening. Shall I send the limousine for you?”

  “Um, yeah, I guess,” Cass said, choking on her words. “That would be good.”

  “Terrific. I’m sure you’ll love all of our treatments.”

  Cass shivered. The way Ms. Mauvais said the word “treatments,” it sounded more like “punishments.”

  Or maybe I should say I’ve come to my senses.

  Rather than continuing to narrate the adventures of Cass and Max-Ernest, I’m going to end this book here—while they’re still safe.

  More importantly, while you’re still safe.

  I know, you’re angry with me. You’ve read this far—you feel you’ve earned the right to know how the story ends.

  Go ahead: laugh, scream, cry, throw the book at the wall.

  If you knew—well, there’s the rub, you don’t know, do you? If you knew the truth, I was going to say, if you knew everything this story entails, all those grizzly, gruesome facts, all those horrible, harrowing details, you’d thank me for sparing you.

  Alas, since you don’t know, you will go to your grave hating me, thinking I am your enemy—when, for the first time, I am acting like a friend.

  Happily, you don’t know how to find me. If you did, I’ve no doubt, you would try to bribe me to finish the story. I know how you are. I know how I am, too. I am very susceptible to bribes. As you’ve probably noticed, I have no self-control whatsoever.

  I like chocolate best. But I also have a fondness for cheese.

  If, for instance, you were to pass under my nose a very ripe brie—you might think the brie was gross and stinky, but you would be wrong, oh so wrong—and you tempted me with a bite, only to tell me that the price of the bite was my continuing the story, well, I’m afraid I might start writing without a moment’s thought. Now, if you were to hand me, say, a piece of chocolate, dark as night, European in origin, with a very high percentage of cocoa—don’t forget that high percentage of cocoa—well, there’s no saying what I would do. Or wouldn’t.

  As a matter of fact, it just so happens that I’ve been saving for a special occasion a piece of chocolate very much like the one I just described. Right now, it’s sitting high up on a shelf that I can’t reach without a ladder. I put it there so I wouldn’t eat it without first fully considering the matter. I must admit, I’ve never wanted it more than I do now.

  The chocolate on my shelf is of the finest quality. I won’t mention the brand here; that’s the kind of information that could help my enemies track me down. Trust me, though, it’s not cheap. Many cacao beans have given their lives to make that chocolate. I can practically taste it now.

  Hmmm, what must I do in order to eat it?

  It would be wrong to eat the chocolate without offering you something in return. I’m not the kind of person who accepts a bribe and then pretends he doesn’t know what the bribe means. Where’s the honor in that?

  In short, if I want to eat the chocolate, I must keep writing.

  What an awful, awful choice! On the one side: I renounce the chocolate, stay healthy and trim, and put an end to this reckless tale-telling. On the other side: I climb up the ladder, feast on chocolate, and then, full of sugar and guilt, I continue my story, knowing I’m possibly sentencing you to a fate worse than death.

  Actually, put like that, the choice is pretty easy.

  I’ll be right back.

  Really, it was. Dark and stormy.

  As if the weather itself had conspired to turn our tale into a ghost story.

  Or as if—and this seems slightly more plausible— Ms. Mauvais somehow controlled the skies and was using them to obscure the events of the evening.

  In any case, the weather makes my job easier. It creates the proper mood. And it eliminates the need to hide certain facts. Like the location of the street corner on which Cass was waiting. With all the rain, you could hardly have seen her anyway.

  For Cass, sadly, the weather didn’t make things any easier, only wetter. And colder. Teeth chattering, she stood under a street lamp, clutching her backpack to her chest for warmth. Not that it was much help; the backpack was no drier than her clothing.

  It had been difficult figuring out what to wear.

  After her phone conversation with Ms. Mauvais, Cass had gone back home again, and rifled through her mother’s closets; she even tried on a dress for the first time in over a year. But despite her recent growth spurt, she still looked like she was playing dress-up when she put on her mother’s clothes. She’d also considered borrowing Amber’s “Honorary Skelton Sister” T-shirt, but she couldn’t bring herself to call and ask for it. Plus, Cass realized, a real Skelton Sister probably wouldn’t wear the T-shirt anyway.

  Finally, she chose to wear her usual jeans and sweatshirt, but she modified the outfit with a pair of furry boots her mother had bought for one of their never-taken ski trips. They didn’t look exactly like the fuzzy boots that Amber and her friends wore but they were cl
ose enough. (I know, at the beginning of this book, I told you Cass would never wear boots like those; I was forgetting she might wear them as part of a disguise.)

  Now, she regretted the boots. Not only were they too big, they were soaked through. Her feet sloshed around in them, and they splattered when she walked. She felt like Bigfoot.

  Her other new accessory was equally impractical for the weather: a pair of sunglasses. But even Cass knew that celebrities wore sunglasses all the time, indoors as well as out. Also, they helped disguise her face—which, presumably, is why celebrities wear them. (Had Cass asked me, I would have told her what I always tell people who are trying to go incognito: lose the shades. They only make you look more conspicuous.) Cass felt certain that neither Ms. Mauvais nor Dr. L would recognize her—they had seen her face for only a second—but it was best to be careful.

  Her backpack, it goes without saying, she never considered leaving. Never mind whether a Skelton Sister would have worn it or not.

  Cass thought wistfully about the hot pot of tea that Grandpa Larry would undoubtedly be making on a rainy night like this one. She wished she’d stopped at the fire station for a cup before heading out to meet the Midnight Sun limousine. Instead, she’d phoned her grandfathers and told them she was staying overnight at Max-Ernest’s house to work on their volcano experiment (for which the due date kept being conveniently postponed). She slept there all the time, she added. And her mother had already spoken to Max-Ernest’s parents, so there was no reason to ask her mother’s permission.

  Her grandfathers had asked a few questions and demanded Max-Ernest’s phone number, but they were still feeling so guilty for making her upset about the Symphony of Smells that they hadn’t given her much trouble. The hardest part was having to listen to Grandpa Larry and Grandpa Wayne argue about whether she should make her volcano erupt with Alka-Seltzer or dry ice.

  “You trust me, right?” Cass had asked. (She felt a little guilty herself playing on their guilt, but she needed to get them off the phone.)

  “Of course we do!” they assured her.

  Then she had called her mother and told her pretty much the same thing—except to her mother she said it was her grandfathers who had spoken to Max-Ernest’s parents, so there was no reason to phone them. “And don’t call me at nine tonight, OK?” Cass added. “Max-Ernest and I are going to be working.”

  “Just don’t stay up too late,” said her mother. “All right, Cass?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Promise?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

  “Yes, Mom!”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I promise!”

  “OK, I love you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Me, too, what?”

  “I love you, too! Sheesh!”

  Although she and Max-Ernest weren’t collaborators anymore, and it was sort of cheating to ask for his help, Cass had had no choice but to call him, too; she had to warn him that he might hear from her grandfathers, or even from her mom.

  She’d been very businesslike with Max-Ernest, she thought. She told him where she’d hidden the magician’s notebook and she gave him all the information she had about the Midnight Sun. And she didn’t say anything about his abandoning their mission or being a coward and a traitor. (Somehow, with all the activity, she’d forgotten that she’d been the one to end their partnership.) He didn’t say much at all, for a change, which was fine with her. Hopefully, he would be able play it off like she was staying with him—at least until the morning.

  Then, well, everyone would start looking for her—probably. But would it be too late?

  She didn’t see the limousine until it splashed to a stop in front of her, glistening with raindrops.

  As Cass waited, the driver got out and walked toward her, heedless of the storm. The driver was big and tall and shadowed in darkness—save for a pair of white gloves, gleaming in the night. Was it Dr. L?

  Every instinct Cass had told her to run. But something that was not quite bravery and not quite fear and not quite the knowledge of Benjamin’s plight kept her rooted to the spot.

  “Miss Skelton?”

  The voice was gruff but not as deep as Cass expected.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” said Cass as forcefully as she could.

  “I’m Daisy.”

  Daisy stepped into the light, revealing a decidedly un-flower-like but indisputably female face. Without another word, she opened the limousine’s back door and beckoned Cass inside with a gloved hand.

  Reminding herself she was a celebrity, and not the type of person to be intimidated by a limousine driver (even if that driver was the tallest woman she’d ever seen), Cass held her head high and climbed in as confidently as if she rode in limousines every day and Daisy were her own personal chauffeur.

  Only after she’d settled into her plush velvet seat did Cass notice how violently her hands were shaking. She had to sit on them to get them to stop.

  Hours passed in silence, Cass barely able to see out of the foggy windows. Generally, she could tell they were heading upward, but the limousine made so many turns that she lost all sense of direction. Too late, she thought of Hansel and Gretel and how you’re supposed to leave a trail of crumbs when you journey into a forest.

  If nobody came for her, how would she find her way back?

  She told herself to stay calm, but doubts kept creeping into her head. Previously, she’d been so focused on getting into the Midnight Sun that she hadn’t stopped to think what she would do once she got inside. Now that she appeared really to be on her way she wondered how she would find Benjamin—and how she would get him out.

  In the back of her mind lurked other, darker questions: Why had Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais taken Benjamin? What did they want him for?

  What had happened to the magician’s brother, Luciano? Would she find him, too, still a prisoner after so much time? He would be an old man by now, his circus days long gone....

  And what about the magician, Pietro, himself? What was the terrible secret he had discovered? Was she strong enough to face it if she had to?

  Suddenly, the limousine rounded a turn and broke through the clouds.

  Cass wiped the fog off the window next to her and looked outside. The sky above was now clear and starry—suggestive no longer of ghost stories but rather of science fiction and space travel. A perfect sky for spotting comets or for studying the constellations if only Cass had had the time and inclination. (Unfortunately, she had neither.) Cass couldn’t tell much about their location except that they were near the top of a mountain. Below them, a vast white blanket of clouds, illuminated by the moon, spread out as far she could see.

  The limousine made another sharp turn, then descended into a small, hidden valley.

  “Look—” Daisy commanded, breaking the silence.

  Only then did Cass become aware of the warm glow suffusing the landscape around them. Craning her neck, she could just make out the source of the glow: an intense golden light peeking over the edge of the mountains. It looked like a sunrise, but it couldn’t have been; the time was just before midnight.

  “There it is,” said Daisy. “The Midnight Sun.”

  I hope it’s not giving away too much to tell you that, only two days later, the Midnight Sun would be devoured by fire. How and why it was set on fire, and who, if anyone, was burned to a crisp, and whether or not the smell of sulfur was in the air—these are questions that will have to wait. In the meantime, the Midnight Sun’s fiery fate frees me to describe it in detail. Because it is gone, you can no longer find it, no matter how good your information.

  So many subjects you study in school prove unnecessary in life: for math, there is always a calculator. For English, there is always spell-check. For history, there is always the encyclopedia. Why should you hold so much knowledge in your head when it is stored right in front of you?

  But there is one subject that comes in handy
time after time.

  I am thinking, of course, about Egyptology.

  To name just one example: a thorough understanding of the mummification process is indispensable whether you are dispatching an enemy or preserving a friend or simply bandaging a head injury.

  More to the point: if you are familiar with the layout of temples from Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (roughly 2000–1600 BC), then you already have a sense of what the Midnight Sun looked like. In particular, the spa was an almost exact replica of a little-known temple to the Egyptian god Thoth—a temple built over the grave of an unnamed pharaoh and accessible only by a three-day camel ride through the desert.

  Cass was sadly ignorant of the finer points of Egyptian architecture. She knew enough, though, to recognize a pyramid when she saw one. Passing through the Midnight Sun’s massive gates, she was temporarily blinded by the blazing light, but once her eyes adjusted she could see a midsize (by Egyptian standards) pyramid standing in the precise center of the spa grounds.

  Perched on top of the pyramid was something that would have astonished even the most seasoned Egyptian explorer. It was a lantern, but much more than a lantern. A perfect orb, it resembled nothing so much as a rising sun. Inside, fire danced every which way, as if fueled not by electricity or gas but rather by some unknown, supernatural source. Although the fire appeared gold at first glance, a longer look revealed a kaleidoscope of colors in the flames.

  It was this lantern that Cass had seen earlier peeking over the mountains. Now, as the limousine door was opened for her, the lantern was so close she had to shield her eyes despite the fact that she was wearing sunglasses. Had she had a sudden change of heart and decided to make a run for it, the glare would have dissuaded her. Anyone in the vicinity could be seen as clearly as if a spotlight were shining directly upon her.

  It’s just like a prison, Cass thought.

  A large gloved hand helped her out of the vehicle. She assumed the hand belonged to Daisy, until she looked up and saw Dr. L’s too-handsome face smiling down at her, his silver hair glowing unnaturally in the light of the lantern.