Secret Histories

They discovered the body on a rainy afternoon.

“Aren’t we there yet?”Eddie said, puffing behind him.

Jack glanced over his shoulder to where Eddie Connel labored through the sandy

soil on his bike. His face was red and beaded with perspiration;

sweat soaked through his red Police T-shirt, darkening Sting’s face. Chunky

Eddie wasn’t built for speed. He wore his sandy hair shorter than most, which tended to make him look even heavier than he was. Eddie’s idea of exercise was

a day on the couch playing PolePositionon his new Atari 5200. Jack

envied that machine. He was stuck with a 2600.

“Only Weezy knows,” Jack said.

He wasn’t sweating like Eddie, but he felt clammy al over. With good reason. The

August heat was stifling here in the Pine Barrens, and the humidity

made it worse. Whatever breeze existed out there couldn’t penetrate the

close-packed, spindly trees.

They were fol owing Eddie’s older sister, Weezy—real y Louise, but no one ever

cal ed her that. She liked to remind people that she’d been “Weezy”

long before TheJeffersonsever showed up on the tube.

She was pedaling her banana-seat Schwinn along one of the firebreak trails that

crisscrossed the mil ion-plus acres of mostly uninhabited woodland

known as the Jersey Pine Barrens. A potential y dangerous place if you didn’t

know what you were doing or where you were going. Every year hunters wandered in, looking for deer, and were never seen again. Locals would wink

and say the Jersey Devil snagged another one. But Jack knew the JD was just a folktale. Wel , he was pretty sure. Truth was, the missing hunters were

usual y amateurs who came il equipped and got lost, wandering around in circles until they died of thirst and starvation.

At least that was what people said. Though that didn’t explain why so few of the

bodies were ever found.

But the Barrens didn’t scare Jack and Eddie and Weezy. At least not during the

day. They’d grown up on the edge of the pinelands and knew this

section of it like the backs of their hands. Couldn’t know al of it, of course. The

Barrens hid places no human eye had ever seen.

Yet as familiar as he was with the area, Jack stil got a creepy sensation when

riding into the trees and seeing the forty-foot scrub pines get thicker and thicker, crowding the edges of the path, and then leaning over with their

crooked, scraggly branches seeming to reach for him. He could almost believe they were shuffling off the path ahead of him and then moving back in to close it

off behind.

“See that sign?” Eddie said, pointing to a tree they passed. “Maybe we should

listen.”

Jack glanced at the orange letters blaring from glossy black tin:

NO FISHING

NO HUNTING

NO TRAPPING

NO TRESPASSING

No big deal. The signs dotted just about every other tree on Old Man Foster’s

land, so common they became part of the scenery.

“Wel ,” he said, “we’re not doing the first three.”

“But we’re doing the fourth.”

“Criminals is what we are!” Jack raised a fist. “Criminals!”

“Easy with that.” Eddie looked around. “Old Man Foster might hear you.” Jack cal ed to the girl riding twenty feet ahead of them. “Hey, Weez! When do

we get there?”

She usual y kept her shoulder-length dark hair down but she’d tied it back in a

ponytail for the trip. She wore a black-and-white—mostly black

—Bauhaus T-shirt and black jeans. Jack and Eddie wore jeans too, but theirs

were faded blue and cut off above the knees. Weezy’s were ful length. Jack couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen her bare legs. Probably white as snow. “Not much farther now,” she cal ed without looking around.

“Sounds like Papa Smurf,” Eddie grumbled. “This is stupidacious.” Jack turned back to Eddie. “Want to trade bikes?”

Jack rode his BMX. He’d let some air out of the tires for better grip in the sand

and they were doing pretty wel .

“Nah.” Eddie patted the handlebars of his slim-tired English street bike. “I’m al

right.”

“Whoa!” Jack heard Weezy say.

He looked around and saw she’d stopped. He had to jam on his brakes to keep

from running into her. Eddie flew past both of them and stopped ahead of his sister.

“Is this it, Smurfette?” he said.

Weezy shook her head. “Almost.”

She had eyes almost as dark as her hair, and a round face, normal y milk pale,

made paler by the dark eyeliner she wore. But she was flushed now with heat and excitement. The color looked good on her. Made her look almost …

healthy, a look Weezy did not pursue.

Jack liked Weezy. She was only four months older, but his January birthday had

landed him a year behind her in school. Come next month they’d both

be in Southern Burlington County Regional High, just a couple of miles away. But

she’d be a soph and he a lowly frosh. Maybe they’d be able to spend

more time together. And then again, maybe not. Did sophs hang with freshmen?

Were they al owed?

She wasn’t pretty by most standards. Skinny, almost boyish, although her hips

seemed to be flaring a little now. Back in grammar school a lot of the kids had cal ed her “Wednesday Addams” because of her round face and perpetual y

dark clothes. If she ever decided to wear her hair in pigtails, the

resemblance would be scary.

But whatever her looks, Jack thought she was the most interesting girl—no,

make that most interesting personhe’d ever met. She read things no one else read, and viewed the world in a light different from anyone else. She pointed to their right. “What on Earth’s going on there?”

Jack saw a smal clearing with a low wet spot known in these parts as a spong.

But around the rim of the spong stood about a dozen sticks of odd

shapes and sizes, leaning this way and that.

“Who cares?” Eddie said. “If this isn’t what you dragged us out here to see, let’s

keep going.”

After hopping off her bike, she leaned it against a tree and started for the

clearing.

“Just give me a minute.”

His curiosity piqued, Jack leaned his bike against hers and fol owed. The

knee-high grass slapped against his sweaty lower legs, making them itch. A glance back showed Eddie sitting on the sand in the shade of a pine. Jack caught

up to Weezy as they neared the spong.

“They just look like dead branches someone’s stuck in the sand.” “But why?” Weezy said.

“For nothing better to do?”

She looked at him with that tolerant smile—the smile she showed a world that just didn’t get it. At least not in her terms.

“Everything that happens out here happens for a reason,” she said in the ooh-spookytone she used whenever she talked about the Barrens.

He knew Weezy loved the Barrens. She studied them, knew everything about them, and had been delighted back in 1979, at the tender age of eleven,

when the state passed a conservation act to preserve them.

She gestured at the sticks, not a dozen feet away now. “Can you imagine anyone coming out here just to poke sticks into the ground for no reason at

al ? I don’t—” She stopped, grabbed Jack’s arm, and pointed. “Look! What’d I tel you?”

Jack kind of liked the feel of her fingers gripping his forearm, but he fol owed her point. When he saw what she was talking about, he broke free and

hurried forward.

“Traps! A whole mess of traps.”

“Yeah,” Weezy said, coming up behind him. “The nasty leg-hold type. Some dirty, rotten …”

As her voice trailed off Jack glanced at her and flinched at her enraged expression. She looked a little scary.

“But they’ve al been sprung.” He started walking around the spong. “Every single one of them.”

“Whoever did this is my hero,” she said, fol owing close behind. “Didn’t I tel you that everything that happens out here—”

“—happens for a reason,” Jack said, finishing for her.

Clear as day that someone had set up a slew of traps around the perimeter of the spong, planning to trap any animals that stopped by to drink from the

water in its basin.

And just as clear, someone else had come by with a bunch of dead branches and used them to tap the trigger plates, springing the traps and making

them harmless. In some cases the steel jaws had snapped right through the dead wood; in others it had only dented it, leaving the branch upright.

“Got to be at least a couple dozen along here,” Jack said.

“Not anymore.”

She bent, grabbed one of the trap chains, and started working its anchor loose from the sand.

“What are you doing?”

“Watch.”

As the coiled anchor came free, Weezy grabbed it and the trap itself, then hurled the whole assembly into the spong. The two ends swung around on

their chain like a boomerang before splashing into the shal ow water and disappearing beneath the surface.

She turned to him, brushing the sand from her hands.

“Come on, Jack. We’ve got work to do.”

He stared at her, surprised by the wild look in her eyes …

“But—”

“These rats don’t check their traps for three or four days at a time.”

“How do you know al this?”

“I read, Jack.”

“So do I.”

“Yeah, but you read fifty-year-old magazines. I read about what’s real y going on in the world.” She pointed to a trap. “Three days in one of those. Think

about it.”

He did, imagining himself a fox or possum or raccoon with a broken leg caught in the steel jaws, hungry and thirsty, with water just a couple of dozen

feet away but unable to get to it. It made his gut crawl.

Without a word, he bent and worked an anchor free of the ground, then fol owed Weezy’s example and tossed the trap into the water.

“Two down. How many more to go?”

He found her staring at him with a strange light in her eyes.

“About thirty.”

“Then we’re gonna need help.” He turned and waved to Eddie. “Over here! You gotta see this!”

As Eddie made his way toward them, Jack and Weezy bent again to the task of ripping out the traps and hurling them into the drink.

Eddie arrived and gawked at what they were doing. “Are you guys crazy?You can’t do that!”

Jack held up a trap. “Real y? Watch.”

He tossed it into the water.

Eddie slapped his hands against the side of his head. “What if Old Man Foster comes along and catches us?”

Weezy said, “Wel , his signs do say, ‘No Trapping.’ We’re just helping him out.”

“That means no trapping by anybody else.We could be in hel acious big trouble.”

Jack doubted that. Old Man Foster was just a name. No one had ever seen the guy. Everyone knew he owned this big piece of the Barrens and that

was about it. Though nobody saw them go up, fresh NoTrespassingsigns appeared every year. Sometimes poachers would take them down, but before

you knew it they’d be back up again.

Another mystery of the Pine Barrens. A very minor one.

As for Eddie, Jack wasn’t sure if he was acting as the voice of good sense, or trying to duck the work of pul ing out the traps. He hated anything more

strenuous than working a joystick.

“Look,” Jack told him. “The sooner we get this done and get on our way, the less chance we’l have of being caught. So come on. Get to it.”

Eddie obeyed, but not without his trademark grumbling.

“Okay, okay. But I don’t have to ask whose idea this was. It’s got my crazy sister written al over it.”

In a flash Weezy was in his face. “What did you say?”

Eddie gave her a sheepish look. “Nothing.”

“You did! I heard you! Hasn’t this been talked about a mil ion times?” Eddie nodded without looking at her. “Right,” she said. “So you keep your mouth

shut or someone’s going to hear about this.”

Eddie sighed, saying, “Okay, okay,” and returned to working on a trap.

Baffled, Jack caught Weezy’s eye as she turned from her brother. “What—?”

“Family matter, Jack.” She turned away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Jack wasn’t worried. But he couldn’t help but wonder. He’d known these two al his life. What was this al about?

“Okay,” Weezy said, stopping her bike. “Here we are.”

After sinking al the traps, they’d pedaled like mad away from the spong. Along the way, Jack had wished for a few clouds to hide the sun and cool the

air, but the sky ignored him. At least now they’d arrived at their original destination.

Jack fol owed her gaze. “It’s just some burned-out patch.”

Fires were common in the Barrens during the summer. Tourists and nature lovers came to camp and sometimes got careless with their campfires or

Coleman stoves or cigarettes. Same with poachers. And many times Nature herself took the blame, setting a tree ablaze with a bolt of lightning.

Usual y a ranger in a fire tower, like the one on Apple Pie Hil , would spot the smoke and send out an alarm. Then the local and county volunteer fire

companies would go racing to the scene along the fire trails. But the smal er fires started during a storm often would burn only an acre or two before being

doused by the rain.

“Not just any burned-out patch.” She motioned Jack and Eddie to fol ow. “Come on. I’m going to show you something no one else—except for me—has

seen in a long, long time.”

Eddie said, “Aw, come on, Smurfette—”

She stopped and turned to him. “And you can cut the Smurfette bit. Unless you like ‘Pugsley.’”

“Okay, okay. But what about the firemen who put out the fire? They must have seen it.”

“No firemen for this one.”

Eddie snorted. “You psychic now?”

“Check it out.” She gestured around them. “What’s missing?”

Eddie and Jack did ful turns.

“Green trees?” Jack said.

Weezy shook her head. “Litter. There’s no litter. Firefighters always leave coffee cups, candy wrappers, Coke cans, Gatorade bottles, al sorts of stuff.

But not here. Ergo …”

Jack knew from his father that ergowas Latin for “therefore,” but a glance at Eddie showed he hadn’t a clue.

He checked the ground again. Not even a gum wrapper. Weezy didn’t miss a trick.

As they fol owed her into the burned-out area, Jack noticed how the pine trunks had been charred coal black. The remaining needles high up were a

dead brown, and the usual spindly little branches sticking out here and there lower down the trunks had been burned off. But the trees weren’t dead. Every

single trunk was sprouting new little branchlets, pushing them through the scorched crust of the bark and sporting baby needles of bright green. Everyone

had heard of the Sears DieHard battery. These were nature’s die-hard trees.

As she’d done al day, Weezy led the way, winding through the blackened trunks until she came to a break in the trees.

“Here’s where the mound begins.”

“Mound?” Eddie said. “Where?”

But Jack saw what she meant. They stood at the tip of where two linear mounds, each a couple of feet high and maybe a yard wide, converged to a

point. Both ran off at angles between the blackened trees.

“Like some giant gopher,” Eddie said.

Weezy shook her head. “Except look how smooth they are. And how straight. Nobody knows it’s here, and I never would have noticed it if the fire hadn’t

cleared al the undergrowth. I haven’t explored the whole thing, so I—”

“You were out here alone?” Jack said.

She nodded. “You know me. I like to explore. Who else is going to come along? You?”

His two part-time jobs didn’t leave Jack much time to explore the Barrens, especial y not to the extent Weezy did. She’d spend hours digging for

arrowheads or other artifacts. The only reason he was out here today was because Mr. Rosen closed his store on Mondays.

He smiled and shrugged. “Beautiful teenage girl alone in the woods … might meet a Big Bad Wolf.”

She grinned and punched him on the shoulder. “Get out! Now you’re making fun of me.”

“Maybe a little, but you’ve got to be careful, Weez.”

She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. But they’ve got to find me first.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I got a little spooked here before I could explore the rest of the

mound, so that’s—”

“You? Spooked?” Eddie laughed. “You area spook. Nothing spooks you.”

“Wel , this place does.” She pointed along the lengths of the two ridges to where they faded into the trees. “See how nothing grows on the mounds? I

mean, isn’t that weird?”

Jack saw what she meant. Low-lying scrub—most of it scorched and blackened—crowded around the trees and spread across every square inch of

sand between them. Everywhere except on the mounds.

Yeah. Weird, al right. Sand was sand. What made the mounds different?

Or was it a single mound, angling in different directions?

“Feel it,” she said, patting the surface. “It’s stil sand, but it’s hard. Like it hasn’t been disturbed for so long it’s formed some kind of crust.”

Jack ran his fingers along the surface, then pressed. The sand wouldn’t yield. But something else … an unpleasant tingle in his fingertips. He pul ed

them away and looked at them. The tingling stopped. He glanced at Weezy and found her staring at him.

“So it isn’t just me. You feel it too.”

“Feel what?” Eddie said, rubbing his hands over the hard surface. “I don’t feel anything.”

Weezy was stil staring at Jack. “Now you know what spooked me.”

She reached around to a rear pocket and pul ed out the smal spiral notebook and pencil she never went anywhere without.

“I’l bet somebody designed this in a special shape. Let’s see if we can figure it out.”

“What do you mean, ‘special shape’?”

“A lot of these mounds are ancient—thousands of years old.”

“You mean, like, burial mounds?”

Jack had heard of those. The Lenape Indians used to inhabit the pines.

Weezy shook her head. “Some of the most mysterious mounds have nothing to do with burials. Take the Serpent Mound in Ohio. It curves back and

forth like a snake for over a quarter mile. And get this—nobody knows how old it is. This could be something like that.” Her face brightened as she smiled.

“And Idiscovered it. I’ve gotto get this diagrammed.”

Wondering how she knew al this stuff, Jack watched her draw a few lines on her pad, then move off, weaving through the trees as she fol owed the

mound to the right. Jack and Eddie fol owed close behind through air heavy with the smel of burned wood. This was Weezy’s show, but Jack was getting

into it. Something about these mounds and the way nothing grew on them gave him a funny feeling in his gut, but he had to admit he was fascinated.

into it. Something about these mounds and the way nothing grew on them gave him a funny feeling in his gut, but he had to admit he was fascinated.

“Oh, look at this,” she said after she’d gone maybe twenty feet. “Another mound crosses here.” She drew some more lines. “This is getting confusing.”

“Hey,” Eddie said.

Jack turned and saw him standing atop the mound with his arms spread.

“Eddie—” Weezy began

“You want to map these mounds, right? Wel , instead of ducking through al those trees, doesn’t it make more sense to fol ow the mounds themselves?

It’l be a lot less boracious.”

Jack to turned to Weezy. “You know, that’s a great idea.”

Weezy hesitated, then shrugged. “I guess everybody has a good idea in them,” she muttered. “Even Eddie.”

Jack bowed and made a flourish toward the mound. “Ladies first.”

She smiled and faked a curtsy. “Why, thank you, kind sir.”

As the three of them began walking the mound, the sky darkened. Jack looked up and saw a menacing pile of clouds scudding in from the west,

blotting out the sun. Weezy shaded her eyes as she stared skyward.

“Shoot. We’ve got trouble.”

“Looks like a thunderhead,” Eddie said.

She nodded. “Cumulonimbus—piled high. Going to be a bad one.”

“‘Cumulonimbus’?” Jack had to laugh. Weezy never ceased to amaze him. “How do you knowthis stuff?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you sit down and memorize everything you read?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have to. If I read something once, it’s there.I never forget it. Ever. At least not so far.”

No wonder she got straight A’s. Jack would give anything— anything—for that power.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Hurry,” she said. “I want to get this done before the downpour.”

She started quick-walking along the mound until she came to another intersection. As she stopped to mark in her notebook, Jack looked around for

Eddie and spotted him a couple of dozen feet back. He was down on one knee, fiddling with his sneaker lace.

“Come on, Eddie. Don’t want the Jersey Devil to catch you.”

He grinned. “You kidding? I have JD sausages for breakfast every morning.”

He jumped up and started trotting toward them. When he neared he jumped and landed inches in front of Jack.

“Boo!”

More thunder then, but another sound too. As Eddie’s feet thumped onto the surface of the mound, they kept on going, breaking through the outer shel

with a crunch.

Jack looked down and saw Eddie’s sneakers sunk ankle deep in the softer sand within.

“Jeez, man! What’d you do?”

He heard Weezy hurry up behind him and gasp. “Oh, Eddie! How couldyou?”

Eddie’s face reddened—whether with anger or embarrassment, Jack couldn’t tel .

“Hey, I didn’t—”

“You are the most unbelievable klutz! This mound’s sat here undisturbed for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and you’re here, what, ten minutes,

and already you’ve desecrated it!”

“It was a soft spot! How could I know?”

Lightning flashed, fol owed quickly by a roar of thunder that rattled Jack’s fil ings. He looked up at a sky completely lidded with dark clouds looking

ready to burst. Jeez, this storm was coming fast.

“Time to take cover, guys,” he said.

He grabbed Weezy’s arm and started pul ing her back toward the bikes. He knew if he didn’t she’d probably stay in the open, storm or no storm,

drawing her diagram. She didn’t fight him. Eddie fol owed.

Just as they reached the bikes, the sky opened like a bursting dam. They huddled in the center of a thick copse of young pines.

“Under a tree,” Weezy said. “The worst place to be in a storm.”

Jack knew that, but didn’t see as they had much choice. Even under the trees they were getting soaked.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Weez,” Jack said, “we’re in the middle of the Pine Barrens. If you know of a place without trees, I’m al ears.”

Weezy said nothing more, just crouched on her haunches, her eyes closed and her fingers in her ears. Eddie too. They both jumped with every

thunderclap.

Jack didn’t get that. He lovedthunderstorms—their fury, their unpredictability, their deafening light shows fascinated him. Same with his father. Many a

summer night they’d sit together on the front porch and watch a storm approach, peak, and move on. Sometimes Dad would drive him over to Old Town

where they’d park within sight of the Lightning Tree. For some reason no one could figure, the long-dead tree took a hit from every storm that passed

overhead.

The thunder grew louder, the lightning flashed brighter, the rain fel harder. The world funneled down to the copse and little else. Nothing was visible

beyond their clump of trees. Water cascaded through the branches and swirled around their feet. Might as wel have been in the shower—except Jack

wished he could have cranked up the hot water handle.

He felt his Converse Al -Stars fil ing with water.

Swel .

After a couple of forevers, the storm tapered off. When the rain final y stopped they stepped out of the copse and shook themselves off.

Jack took off his T-shirt and wrung the water out of it. Eddie fol owed suit. Weezy didn’t have that luxury. Her Bauhaus shirt was plastered to her; she

pul ed it free of her skin as best she could. Her soaked hair looked almost black, her bangs were plastered to her forehead, and her ponytail had become

a rattail.

“Look at us,” she said. “Three drowned mice.”

“At least we didn’t get hit by lightning,” Eddie said. “Let’s get home. I need to dry off.”

“But I haven’t mapped the mound yet.”

Eddie rol ed his eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding! You can come back any time—”

“Just give me a few minutes.”

“Come on, Eddie,” Jack said, nudging him with an elbow. “What difference is a few more minutes going to make?”

“Okay, okay. I’l stay with the bikes.”

She pul ed out her notepad and regarded it with dismay. “Soaked!”

But that didn’t stop her. She hurried ahead, hopped on the mound, and began retracing her steps. The sun popped out as Jack fol owed. Now he

welcomed it.

Weezy stopped where Eddie had broken through the crust and pointed to the edges.

“See this? I was so mad at him I didn’t notice before, but it’s real y weird.”

Jack saw what she meant. Eddie had shattered a four-or five-foot length of the crust into about a zil ion irregular pieces, but the edges of the broken

area—the near, the far, and both sides near ground level—were perfectly straight. Could have been cut by an electric saw.

The rain had done a number on the soft sand within the mound, washing it out and fanning it around the break like a cloud. Jack didn’t know what kind

of cloud it resembled, but he was sure Weezy could tel him.

He kicked over a random shard of crust and spotted something shiny and black beneath it. Before he could react, Weezy was on her knees and al over

it.

“What’s this?”

She started scooping away the surrounding wet sand, gradual y revealing a black cube the size of a softbal . Gently, cautiously, she wriggled her fingers

beneath it.

“Why don’t you just pick it up?” Jack said.

“Because it may be attached to something.” Her fingers must have met on its underside because suddenly she lifted it free and held it up. “Heavy!”

She laid it on the ground between them and began to examine it, tilting it a little this way and a little that.

Jack knelt opposite her. “What do you think it is?”

She shook her head, looking as baffled as he felt. “I don’t know. Some kind of stone—onyx, maybe? It’s got no writing on it, but I get this feeling it’s …

old.” She looked up at him. “Know what I mean?”

Jack couldn’t say why, but he knew exactly what she meant.

“Yeah. Very old.”

“And where there’s one there’s probably others.” Her eyes were wide with wonder and excitement. “Help me, Jack?”

He laughed. “Try and stop me.”

He wanted one of those cubes for himself.

So they started digging—not easy in the wet sand. But they kept coming up empty. Frustration was beginning to nibble at Jack when his fingertips

scraped against a hard surface.

“Got something!”

He dug his fingers down on each side of whatever it was and pul ed it up.

And found himself looking into the empty eye sockets of a rotting human head.

He stared in mute, openmouthed, grossed-out shock. Beside him, Weezy screamed.

Jack spotted a sheriff’s patrol car rol ing down Quakerton Road, Johnson’s main drag, just as he, Weezy, and Eddie raced into town. Johnson—often

confused with Johnson Place, fifteen miles northeast of here—wasn’t big enough to rate its own police force, so the Burlington County Sheriff’s

Department patrol ed the streets.

Trouble was, the cruiser was moving away.

Jack threw extra muscle behind the pedals and started waving an arm and yel ing as he chased it. Whoever was behind the wheel must have spotted

him because the cruiser pul ed over and waited.

He skidded to a halt beside the driver’s window and saw Deputy Tim Davis behind the wheel. Jack knew him from when Davis used to date his sister,

Kate, back in their high school days. He looked up at Jack through super-dark aviator sunglasses.

“Hey, Jack. How’s that beautiful sister of yours?”

Jack had pedaled so hard on his way back from the mound that it took him a second or two to catch enough breath to reply.

“Greatwefoundadeadbodyinthepines!”

He laughed. “Did you say ‘deadbody’? What? As opposed to a live one?”

“I’m not kidding, Tim.” He might be “Deputy” to everybody else, but he’d been “Tim” to eight-year-old Jack back when he’d gone out with Kate and so

he’d always be “Tim” in Jack’s mind.

“It’s true!” Weezy puffed as she pul ed up beside him. “I saw it too!”

Tim’s smile vanished as he stared at Jack. “This had better not be one of your practical jokes.”

Jack gave him a wounded look. “Who, me?”

He’d pul ed a couple of pranks on Tim and Kate when they were dating—innocent little tricks like resetting Tim’s watch and his car clock ahead so

they’d get home an hour early. Truth was, even though he’d liked Tim, he hadn’t wanted Kate dating anyone.

“Look at us.” Jack pointed to his face, then Weezy’s. “Do we look like we’re joking?”

People were discovering bodies al the time in the mystery-thril er-adventure stories Jack devoured. He’d always thought he’d be pretty cool if ever in

that situation.

Uh-uh.

He could stil feel the dry, rotted flesh against his fingers, see those empty eye sockets, the grinning teeth, the matted hair. Ugh. It made him queasy to

think about it. He tried to push it from his mind but it kept slithering back.

He wasn’t sure but he thought he might have screamed right along with Weezy. If so, he hoped she hadn’t heard him. That would be majorly

embarrassing.

Tim got on his radio. “This is A-seventeen requesting backup. I have a report of a corpse in the Pines near Johnson.”

A burst of static fol owed, choking a voice saying “Rogerthat”or “Ten-four”or whatever.

Tim opened his door, unfolding a map as he stepped out. He spread it on the hood of his car.

“Where exactly did you find this body?”

Jack looked at the angled lines of the fire lanes and the winding old Piney roads and didn’t know where to begin. He’d been fol owing Weezy’s lead and

hadn’t been paying attention.

Weezy stepped forward and jabbed her finger onto the map. “Right about here.”

Tim looked at her. “That’s Zeb Foster’s land.”

Weezy went al wide-eyed and innocent. “Is it? Oh, my goodness. We had no idea. We were just fol owing this fire trail, then we took the right fork here,

and the left fork here …”

Jack spotted Eddie standing by the rear bumper, leaning on his bike and looking annoyed. Jack wheeled over to him.

“You guys weren’t kidding, were you,” he said. “Al the way home I half thought you were putting me on. Wouldn’t be the first time you sucked me in.”

“But we wouldn’t be putting on the sheriff’s department, right?”

He shook his head. “I guess not. So if it was real, why didn’t you let me see?”

“Nobody stopped you. You could’ve gone over.”

“Yeah, but I thought you were kidding and you’d laugh at me.”

“We’re a little old for ‘made-you-look’ stuff, don’t you think?”

Jack hadn’t pul ed anything on Eddie since this past winter when he’d pul ed the ancient trick of rubbing some black grease around the edges of the

eyepieces of a pair of old binoculars. After Eddie had taken a look, he’d wandered around his house for hours with two black eyes. Hadn’t a clue until

Weezy came home and cracked up at the sight of him.

Eddie pounded a fist on his handlebar. “Man, some people have al the luck.”

“Trust me, if you’d seen it, you’d be thinking ‘yuck’ instead of luck.”

Eddie’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Yeah, but a deadbody.Awesomacious.”

Jack turned back to Tim and Weezy.

He heard her saying, “You fol ow those trails and look for a burned-out area on your right. That’l be the place.”

Tim was nodding. “Sounds easy enough. Anything else you can tel me?”

Jack caught Weezy’s eye and nodded to the black box in the bike basket. She returned a frantic No-please-don’t!look. So he said nothing.

Tim looked at Jack. “We’l probably need a statement from you three sometime tomorrow.”

Another sheriff’s car pul ed up then. Tim and the newcomer talked for a minute, then the two of them roared off toward the Pines.

Jack, Weezy, and Eddie stood there, looking at each other.

“Now what?” Eddie said.

Weezy pul ed the black box from her basket. “We go back to my place and see if we can open this.”

Jack said, “What makes you think it opens?”

She handed it to him. “Check the edges. Don’t those look like seams? This could be some kind of ancient puzzle box.”

Yeah, the edges did look seamed … or creased.

“Sounds like fun but …” Jack handed it back. “I promised Mister Courtland I’d mow his lawn today.”

“You can mow it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I’m at the store. Besides, I promised him today.”

Weezy sighed. “Okay. Stop by later and see what we found.” She looked at the box, turning it over in her hands, then back at Jack. “Thanks for not

mentioning it to Deputy Dog.” “Tim’s okay.”

“Yeah, but he would’ve wanted it for evidence or something.” Her expression was fierce as she clutched it against her chest. “This is mine.”

Jack dramatical y cleared his throat. “Um, if I remember, we found it together.”

Her expression faltered. “Yeah. Okay. I guess we did. You want it?” Her eyes said, Pleasedon’tsayyes.

“Nah. You keep it.”

She grinned her relief. “You’re a good friend, Jack. The best.”

She leaned close and touched his arm, and for an instant he feared she might kiss him. Not that it would be so bad in itself, but jeez, not in front of

Eddie. He’d never hear the end of it.

He said, “Just let me know if you discover any ancient secrets—like eternal life, or how to turn lead into gold. I get an equal share.”

“Deal. As for secrets …” She stared again at the box. “… the world is fullof secrets.”

Eddie rol ed his eyes. “Here we go again. ‘The Secret History of the World.’”

“Stop it, Eddie. There isa secret history. And who knows? This just might hold one of those secrets.”

She replaced it in her basket, then waved and started pedaling off.

“See ya.”

Eddie fol owed. “Later, Jack.”

As Jack watched them go, Weezy’s words echoed in his head.

You’reagoodfriend,Jack.Thebest.

Am I? he thought as he hopped on his bike and headed home.

Was anyone real y his friend? Sure, he hung out with kids. Not very many. Just a few, in fact. Mostly Weezy and Eddie, and lately Steve Brussard. But he

didn’t feel they were true friends. More like acquaintances. The only one he felt any connection to was Weezy, and she was a girl. And even that wasn’t a

real connection.He simply found her unique. No one he knew looked at the world the way she did. She was always finding weird links between seemingly

unrelated things or occurrences.

He saw himself, on the other hand, as pretty dul . Whatever he liked to do tended to be something done alone. Like reading. Like mowing lawns. Like

swimming—he was on the Johnson swim team, and yeah it was cal ed a team, but he couldn’t think of many things more isolated than stroking back and

forth the length of a pool where the only thing to hear was the splash of his arms and legs, and the only thing to see was the black lane strip on the bottom.

Except maybe cross-country running, which he also liked.

Where did he fit? Where did he belong?

Maybe high school would be different. Dread tinged his anticipation. Meeting new kids. Being at the bottom of the pecking order. SBC Regional had

kids from al over the area. Maybe he’d find a bunch he could connect with. And maybe he’d fol ow the same pattern as he had in middle school. The difference between loner and loser was one letter.

Which was he?

“Oh, Jackie!” his mother said as she hugged him for the umpteenth time since he’d dropped the bomb about finding the body. “Wil my miracle boy be

able to sleep tonight?”

“It’s Jack, Mom. Jack,okay. Please?”

He’d been cal ed Jackie—at least at home—for most of his life. But he was heading for high school now where he wanted to be Jack.His mother was

proving the hardest to break of the habit.

As for “miracle boy”—forget about it. He’d come along when she’d thought she was through with having children, thus the name. She’d no doubt cal him

that on her deathbed.

Mom dying … he brushed the thought away. He couldn’t imagine it. He expected her and Dad to live forever.

He had her brown hair and brown eyes, and her love of music, although their tastes were nothing alike. She listened to the same Broadway albums over

and over— SouthPacificwas playing now—while Jack was firmly into rock. His current faves were Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and the eerie

“Synchronicity” off the new Police album.

She used to be thin but now complained about putting on weight these past couple of years. He’d heard her blame it on “the changes.”

“Okay, yes,” she said smiling at him. “Jack.I’m trying, honey, but old habits are hard to break, you know.”

“Just think: Whenever you’re about to say ‘Jackie,’ cut it in half.”

She laughed. “I’l try, I’l try.”

She turned on the dishwasher and headed for the living room to read. She loved novels and belonged to both the Literary Guild and the Book-of-the

Month Club. He’d noticed she was reading something cal ed MasteroftheGame by Sidney Sheldon.

Jack had the kitchen with its dark cabinets, Formica counters, and Congoleum floor to himself. The house had started as a three-bedroom ranch and

probably would have remained so if not for Jack. Not so many years after his arrival, his folks had added dormers and finished off the attic into a master

bedroom suite. They moved upstairs, leaving the downstairs bedrooms to the kids.

He retrieved a bag of pink pistachios from a cabinet and sat down at the kitchen counter to shel them. Rather than eating one at a time, he liked to

col ect a pile of twenty or so and gobble them al at once. As he shel ed, he thought about dinner, just recently finished.

The hot topic of conversation around the table had been—no surprise—the body. Tons of speculation on who it was, how old it was, whether it was an

ancient Lenape Indian mummy or the victim of a mob hit transported down here from New York in a trunk and buried where they thought it would never be

found. Or that maybe it was Marcie Kurek, the sophomore who’d disappeared from SBC Regional last year and never been heard from since. That idea

had silenced the table.

Otherwise it had been kind of fun listening to al the theories. One of those increasingly rare family dinners when everybody was present. What with Tom

back and forth to Seton Hal law school and Kate getting ready to start med school at UMDNJ in Stratford, that hardly ever happened anymore. Most

nights lately it had been just Mom, Dad, and Jack.

Of course the event wouldn’t have been complete without the inevitable lecture from Dad about the dangers of kids wandering through the Pine Barrens

without adults. Jack had listened patiently, trying to look interested, but he’d heard it so many times he could recite it by heart. Dad was a good guy, but he

just didn’t get it.

Yeah, the Barrens had its dangers. Some of the Pineys were what they cal ed inbreds—what his brother Tom liked to cal “the result of brothers and

sisters getting too frisky with each other”—and maybe a little unpredictable. And you could come upon a copperhead or timber rattler, or lose some toes

to a snapping turtle if you dangled a bare foot in the wrong pond. But you learned to keep your eyes open … you became Pine-wise.

Old Man Foster might have a deed that said he owned a whole lot of acres and the state conservation agency might pass al sorts of regulations, but as

far as Jack was concerned, the Pine Barrens were an extension of his backyard, and no one was keeping him out of his own backyard.

Kate came in then. Slim with pale blue eyes, a faint splash of freckles across her cheeks and nose, and a strong jawline. Her long blond hair, which she

worked at keeping straight, had gone wavy in the humidity. Jack warmed at the sight of her. Eight years older and a natural nurturer, she’d practical y

raised him. She’d been his best friend growing up and had broken his heart when she left for col ege. Last year, when she’d spent her junior year abroad

in France, had been the worst. He didn’t know what went on over there, but it had changed her. Nothing he could put his finger on, but no denying the

feeling that she’d come back just a tiny bit … different.

“Just got off the phone with Tim,” she said.

Tom came in behind her, smirking. “Rekindling the old flame?”

He was ten years older with a bulging middle; his brown eyes and brown hair were the exact same shade as Jack’s. They’d never got along wel .

Though Tom had never said it, Jack knew he saw him as a fifth wheel on the family car.

Kate gave Tom a tolerant smile. “Not likely. He’s engaged. But he gave me what information he could on the body.”

Jack was al ears. He licked his fingertips, red from opening the pistachios. He had seventeen of the little nuts piled before him—three more to go

before gobbling time.

“Do they know who it is?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. They think it’s maybe two years old.”

“Aaaaw,” Jack said as he popped open another shel . “There goes the Indian mummy idea.”

Kate smiled. “Afraid so.” Her smile faded as she glanced at Tom. “Tim says it was a murder.”

Jack froze, feeling creeped out. The three of them stood silent around the counter. Even big-mouth Tom seemed to have lost his voice.

Final y Jack regained his. “R-real y?”

She nodded. “Yeah, his skul is cracked. But more than that, he says it was some sort of ritual kil ing.”

Jack’s mouth felt a little dry. A ritual murder … images of an Aztec priest cutting out a stil -beating heart flashed through his head. Definitely gross … but

kind of cool.

“Did he say what kindof ritual?”

Kate shook her head. “I asked, but he said that’s al he’s heard.”

Tom gave a low whistle and grinned at Jack. “And to think, this heinous crime would have remained undiscovered, maybe forever, if not for our own

miracle boy.”

Jack was about to say something when Dad popped his head through the door. He looked excited.

“Hey, kids. Come here. You’ve got to see this.”

Jack left his pistachios behind as the three of them trooped into Dad’s study. They found him seated before his brand-new home computer. It looked

like little more than a beige electric typewriter with a couple of oblong boxes atop it, crowned with a six-inch black-and-white monitor. On the table next to

it lay copies of a magazine cal ed inCider.

Years ago Dad had built an Apple I from a kit, but it never worked right. This one he’d bought ful y assembled. Unlike the Apple I, which used tape

cassettes to store programs, this baby used things cal ed disk drives.

General y pretty quiet, Dad seemed fired up. He worked as a CPA, recently moving from Arthur Anderson in Phil y—for some reason, he hadn’t been

getting along with them—to Price Waterhouse in Cherry Hil , which meant a shorter commute. His two loves, outside of his family, were tennis and this

contraption, his Apple. Unlike Jack, Tom, and Mom, his eyes were blue, and he wore steel-rimmed glasses for reading. His formerly ful head of hair had

begun to thin on top.

“I just wrote this little program,” he said, pointing to the screen. “Watch.”

Jack caught a glimpse of a short column of text with lines like “N=N+1” and “Print N” and “GOTO” before Dad hit a key. Suddenly numbers began cascading down the left side of the screen:

1

2

3

4 …

And on and on, progressing from one-digit, to two-digit, and eventual y three-digit numbers.

“Neat!” Jack said. “When wil it stop?”

“Never—unless I tel it to.”

“You mean it’l count to infinity?”

“If I let it.”

“That’s great, Dad,” Tom said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “But what’s it good for?”

“Nothing. I’m teaching myself BASIC, and this is a demonstration of a program cal ed an infinite loop.” He patted his Apple. “Here’s the future, kids. I’ve

got forty-eight K of RAM—could have gotten sixty-four, but I can’t imagine ever needing thatmuch memory.”

Jack had some idea of what he was talking about—he’d been helping Steve Brussard build a Heathkit H-89 computer—but he had a lot to learn.

As Tom, Kate, and Jack returned to the kitchen, Tom whispered, “The future of what?Maybe if you’re a math geek, but for us normal folks?” He shook

his head. “Dad’s gone off the deep end.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kate said. “Like you’d know a thing about it.”

“Remember when he said Betamax would last and VHS would fade away? This is the same thing—a dead end.”

The crossing topics of computers and VCRs brought to mind the tape Jack had rented last month: Tron.Much of the film took place inside a computer.

The story was kind of boring but cool to watch.

“I think it’s neat,” he said.

Tom pointed to Jack. “Hear that? Miracle boy thinks it’s neat. I guess I’l have to revise my opinion.”

Then, with one swift motion, Tom swept Jack’s shel ed pistachios off the counter and popped them into his mouth.

“Hey!”

“What?” Tom said, chewing. “Were those yours?”

“You know they were!”

Jack raised a fist and started toward him—Tom was bigger but Jack didn’t care. Anger had taken control.

Kate stepped between them. “That was pretty lame.”

“What? They were just lying there.” He grinned at Jack over Kate’s shoulder. “Want ‘em back?”

Jack started for him again, but Kate held him back. He could have pushed her aside but no way he’d do that to Kate.

As Tom sauntered out, Jack said, “Bastard.”

“Don’t let Mom hear that,” Kate said.

“Wel , he is.”

“Immature is more like it.” She ruffled Jack’s hair. “You rocked his world when you were born. He was cock of the walk around here for ten years, and

then Mom’s ‘miracle boy’ arrived. I don’t think he’s ever gotten over it. A bad case of arrested development.”

“How about you?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? You were a baby, a real, live baby. Suddenly I didn’t have to play make-believe with dol s anymore, I had the real thing to

care for. I was in heaven.” She hugged him. “I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I stil do, Jackie.”

“Jack, Kate. Jack.”

Jack lay in bed reading a copy of TheSpider,a 1939 magazine with yel owed, flaking pages. Mr. Rosen at USED, where Jack worked part-time, had

stacks of old magazines and let Jack take home a couple at a time to read—”As long as you return them in the condition you received them.”

Jack had already read the half-dozen copies of TheShadowin the stacks. Lately he’d moved on to TheSpider—MasterofMen!,obviously a Shadow

rip-off, copying the slouch hat and the bil owing black cape, but a different kind of guy. Jack had thought the Shadow was cool, but the Spider was even

cooler. The Shadow fought mostly regular crooks while the Spider dealt with threats to the world. Like this issue: “King of the Fleshless Legion,” with al

sorts of skeletons on the cover and the Spider rushing in to save a woman locked alive in a coffin.

Neat.

He wished he could buy posters of these covers. Some of the posters he had now—especial y the one of Devo in their flowerpot hats—were getting

ratty. Besides, he hardly listened to Devo anymore. He certainly wasn’t going to replace his Phil ies pennant, not when they looked like they had a shot at

the World Series this year.

His beloved Eagles, however …

After that stupid footbal players’ strike last season they went a whopping three and six. Wasn’t easy being an Eagles’ fan these days. Maybe with

Vermeil out and that new coach—

He jumped as he heard a single knock on his door. He looked up and saw his father enter.

“How’s it going, Jack?”

“Fine.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “You sure? Finding that … body today isn’t bothering you?”

Jack realized this was a side Dad didn’t show much. He tended to be the stiff-upper-lip sort: If you fal down you pick yourself up and keep going without whining or complaining.

“Real y, I’m fine.”

In fact, what the bad guys were doing to the Spider and what he was giving right back to them had pretty much wiped the body from his mind.

“You going to be able to sleep okay?”

“Think so. I’m not scared, if that’s what you mean. It was gross, but I won’t be dreaming about him coming for me or anything like that.”

At least he didn’t think so. He figured if anything kept him awake it would be questions about who was dead and who had done it and why he was kil ed

and what sort of ritual was used. The last time he’d been too scared to sleep had been a couple of years ago, right after reading ‘Salem’sLot—afraid to

look at his window for fear he’d see Eddie floating outside it.

Dad patted Jack’s leg. “Good. But if you have any problems during the night, don’t be afraid to give a hol er.” His gaze drifted to the magazine. “Good

God, where’d you get that?”

Jack handed it to him. “Mister Rosen’s got a bunch.”

Dad stared at the cover, a smile hovering about his lips. “I used to read these as a kid.”

Jack did a quick calculation: They’d celebrated Dad’s fifty-third birthday last month, which meant he’d been born in 1930. So he would have been nine

when this issue was printed. Nine might have been kind of young, but yeah, he could have read this very copy. Jack knew his father had been a kid once,

but this made his childhood … real.He suddenly saw Dad in a new light.

“Did you like them?”

“You kidding? Doc Savage, the Shadow, and this guy … I loved them.” He flipped through the yel owed pages. “Can I borrow this?”

Jack was only halfway through the story and didn’t want to give it up. He reached into his nightstand drawer and pul ed out another issue he’d already

finished.

“How about this one?”

Dad grinned at the cover: High atop the George Washington Bridge, the Spider battled with a guy in some sort of diving suit over a girl in a shredded

red dress.

“‘Slaves of the Laughing Death.’ I love it.” He rose and slapped Jack on the leg. “Thanks. This’l bring back old memories. And I think you’l be just fine

tonight.”

Jack thought so too. But he was concerned about the magazine. Mr. Rosen would have his hide if it came back damaged.

“Just return it in the condition you got it.”

“No matter what I do, I can’t get it open.”

Jack could sense Weezy’s frustration. It fil ed her bedroom like a storm cloud. He and Eddie knelt on the floor with the black cube from the mound between

them. Weezy sat on the edge of her bed, rubbing her hands together. Jack had told them about the ritual murder story from the sheriff’s office. Usual y that

kind of thing would grab Weezy’s attention like one of those leg-hold traps they’d seen yesterday, but she seemed completely focused on the cube. The Cure’s Pornographywas running in her eight-track player and, as usual, the

whiny voice was grating on Jack’s nerves.

“Can’t you play something else?”

Her smile had no humor in it. “You’d like Siouxsie and the Banshees better? Or

how about Bauhaus?” Her taste in music matched her taste in clothes

and posters.

He found the black-and-white Bauhaus poster of some shirtless guy hanging by

his hands a little too weird. Give Jack the Spider plugging hot lead into mad vil ains any day.

Jack winked at Eddie. “I know she’s got Flashdancehidden around here

somewhere.”

Eddie picked up right away. “She must. I’ve heard it through the wal .” He began

to sing. Badly. “‘She’s a maniac, maaaaaniac—’”

Weezy tossed a pil ow at him. “You lie!And what have you been told about

that?”

Eddie looked puzzled. “What?” Then a light seemed to go on. “Oh, hey, I wasn’t

thinking.”

Weezy only glared at him.

Jack didn’t know what was going on between these two, but doubted it had

anything to do with Flashdance.He tried to bring the talk back to music. “Bauhaus, then,” he said. “Anything but this.”

As she popped out the Cure cassette—thank you, God—he picked up the cube

and turned it over in his hands.

“Can’t open it, eh? What’ve you tried?”

Eddie said, “Anything toolacious. Knife, fork, screwdriver, razor blade,

chisel—you name it. Even a hammer. I’m ready to get my dad’s electric dril .” “Real y?” The glossy black surface looked unmarred. “How come it’s not al

scratched up?”

“Because it doesn’t scratch,” Weezy said, returning to the edge of her bed. “No

matter what we do to it.”

“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” began to play. Jack kind of liked this song. “Maybe it doesn’t open. Maybe it’s just a solid cube of—what did you cal it

yesterday?” “Onyx.”

“What’s onyx?” Eddie said.

“A kind of black stone.”

Eddie snorted. “Black, huh? Figures you’d know about it.”

Weezy gave him a gentle kick. But Eddie had a point. Weezy was into dark—dark

clothes, dark music, dark books. She even kept her shades drawn to

make her room dark. The bright morning sun outside had been locked out. At

least she didn’t have black sheets, although her bedspread was dark

purple. Half a dozen gargoyles peered down at them from her shelves. “It’s not solid,” she said. “Give it a shake.” Jack did just that—and felt something

shift within. Not much. Just the slightest bit, but enough to tel it was

hol ow.

For no particular reason, he dug his thumbnails into the faint groove along one

of the edges and—

The sides of the cube fel open and it tumbled to the floor where it flattened out

in a crosslike configuration.

But what captured and held his attention in an icy grip was the black pyramid

inside—but not like any pyramid Jack had ever seen.

Weezy was off the bed and on the thing like a cat on a mouse. She grabbed it

and held it up, turning it over and over.

“I knew it—I knewit!” Then she looked at Jack, frowning. “How’d you get it

open?”

He shrugged. “I just—”

“Doesn’t matter. What’s important is it’s open.”

But it mattered to Jack. He hadn’t done anything special, just edged his

thumbnails into the—

“Some kind of pyramid,” Eddie said. “Maybe it’s Egyptian.”

“No, the Egyptian pyramids are four-sided. This has six. And it’s engraved with

these weird-looking symbols.”

“Let’s have a look,” Jack said. When Weezy hesitated, he added, “What? Afraid

I’l steal it?”

She flashed a nervous smile as she handed it over. “Don’t be sil y.” But Jack could tel she didn’t want to let it go.

The pyramid felt cold against his skin, and Weezy was right: The symbols, a

different one carved into each face, were kind of weird. Not exactly

hieroglyphics, but not like any letters he’d ever seen either. He upended it and

checked the base. Yep. Another symbol there too.

“Maybe there’s something in this as wel . Maybe it’s like one of those Russian dol

s, you know—”

“Matryoshka,” Weezy said. “A nesting dol .” How did she knowthis stuff? Jack searched the surface for a seam but came up empty.

“Looks like this is it.”

“Check this out,” Eddie said, pointing to the flattened box. “There’s something

carved on this too.”

Jack looked and saw what he meant. Some sort of grid had been carved inside

the crosspiece of the T.

Eddie echoed Jack’s sentiments when he said, “What’s al this mean?” Jack looked at Weezy, who had retrieved the pyramid and was studying it like a

jeweler grading a diamond. Al she needed was that little magnifying

eyepiece. What was it cal ed? A loupe. Right.

“Ever see anything like this in any of your secret histories?” He waved at her

sagging bookshelf. “One of those books hasto—”

She was shaking her head. “Nothing like this at al . Trust me. I know those

books by heart.”

“Then we’ve got to ask somebody.”

“No-no-no!” She clutched the pyramid to her chest. “They’l say it’s evidence and

take it from us.”

“We don’t have to mention it’s got anything to do with the body. We’l just say we

found it somewhere in the Pines and leave it at that.”

“Okaaaay,” she said slowly. “Let’s say we do that. Who can we show it to?”

A name popped into Jack’s mind immediately. “Mister Rosen.”

Weezy made a face. “He’s just a junk dealer.”

“Yeah, but it’s oldjunk. He knows everythingabout old stuff. You even got some

of your weirdo books from him, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts. If he can’t help us, he’l know someone who can.”

“Okay. But first …”

She jumped up and hurried from the room, taking the pyramid with her. “Hey, look,” said Eddie, holding up a reassembled black cube. “I got her back

together. The sides just clicked into place. Simplacious.” He started

prying at the edges. “But I can’t seem to get her open again.”

Jack showed him where to position his thumbnails but, try as he might, Eddie

couldn’t get it open.

“Here. Let me have that.”

He took the cube, positioned his thumbnails the way he’d shown Eddie, and

pried.

The box popped open.

“How do you dothat?” Eddie said. Jack had no idea.

2

Weezy returned carrying the family Polaroid camera.

“Before we do anything, I’m getting some photos.”

She set the pyramid on her desk, knelt before it, and snapped a picture from

about two feet away. The flash lit the room.

Probably more light than this room’s seen in a long time, Jack thought. The camera whirred and spit out the photo. As expected, it came out blank.

Weezy put it aside to let it develop as she rotated the pyramid and— flash, whir—photographed the other side. Then she turned to Jack.

“Lay that on the floor, okay?” she said, pointing to the unfolded box in his hand. He did, then watched as she snapped another picture.

“Okay,” she said, stepping back to her desk. She picked up the first photo and

frowned. “Damn.”

Jack stepped closer and peered over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” “I was too close.”

Jack wasn’t so sure. “Maybe. But funny how that pen lying right next to it is in

perfect focus.”

Weezy picked up the second photo: Same thing. And then the one of the unfolded box, where she hadn’t been close at al . The box pieces were blurred

but the rug around it was in perfect focus.

“Al blurred.”

Eddie came over and took a look.

“I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but that’s creepitacious.”

Jack agreed, but didn’t say so. There had to be an explanation.

“Let’s try this,” he said, grabbing the pyramid and stepping back. He held it waist-high before him. “Take a shot of me holding it.”

Weezy did just that. The three of them clustered and watched as the image slowly took shape. There stood Jack, his head cut off by the top of the photo

frame. The Phil ies logo on his T-shirt was perfectly legible, but resting in his hand was a …

Blur.

He felt a chil run over his skin.

Beside him, Eddie said, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”

Jack couldn’t have agreed more.

But Weezy … she looked like she’d just found the Holy Grail. Her eyes shone as she clutched the photo and stared at it.

“We’ve found one!” she whispered.

“One what?”

“A secret … a secret object.”

Eddie groaned. “Your Secret History of the World again?”

She turned on him. “You like to make fun of me and that’s okay. Why should you be different from anybody else? But there isa secret history. We think

we know what’s happened in the past but we don’t. Most history books don’t even get the eventsright, and they haven’t a clueas to what was going on behindthose events.”

Eddie snorted. “Oh, and you do?”

“I wish I did. But I know something’sbeen going on. Secret societies and mysterious forces are out there pul ing strings and manipulating people and

events and everyone wants to believe they’re in charge of their lives but they’re not because we’re al being pushed this way and that for secret reasons

and we don’t even know it.”

She was talking a hundred miles an hour, like she’d had a box of Cocoa Puffs and a couple of quarts of Mountain Dew for breakfast. She took a breath

and continued.

“There’s too many coincidences out there. Something’s going on— hasbeen going on throughout human history. And this—” She held up the pyramid.

“We weren’t supposed to find this. We’re not supposed to have it. Because it’s proof that not everything is as it seems. I mean, why can’t we photograph

it? Answer me that.”

Eddie shrugged. He looked a little cowed by Weezy’s outburst. “I dunno. Maybe the camera’s broken.”

Weezy tilted back her head and screeched at the ceiling. “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. Look at those pictures!

It’s staring you in the face but you don’t see it because you don’t wantto see what you can’t explain because it wil upset yours and everybody else’s

comfortable little worldview that we’re in control. Wel , we aren’t!”

She stopped, breathing hard. Eddie didn’t speak. Neither did Jack. He’d never seen Weezy like this. Sure, she got hyper at times and had al sorts of

strange theories about everything from the Kennedy assassination to Charles Manson, but this was kind of scary. Someone had pushed her hyperdrive

button.

She turned to him. “What about you, Jack? What do you say?” She held up the pyramid. “Something wrong with the camera or something wrong with

this?”

He remembered how clearly he could read his T-shirt in the last photo, yet how blurred the pyramid was, even though he’d been holding it against his

chest.

“The pyramid.” He quickly held up his hand to cut off another speech. “I’m not saying it has anything to do with secret histories—could be it’s made of

something that does tricks with light—but I don’t think it’s the camera.”

She sighed and fixed him with her big dark eyes. “Thank you, Jack. That means a lot.”

Even though he’d witnessed her mood changes before, her sudden calm jarred him. She’d dropped from pedal-to-the-metal to cruising speed in the

blink of an eye.

“I want to know what it is,” he said.

She nodded. “I’ve gotto know what it is.”

“Wel , we won’t find out sitting here.”

“Right,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Let’s go see Mister Rosen.”

3

Eddie had decided that defending the Earth in MissileCommandwould be more interesting than listening to whatever Mr. Rosen might have to say. He

talked of beating the world-champion score of eighty mil ion points. Fat chance.

Jack and Weezy could have walked but figured bikes were faster. Neither wanted to wait any longer than necessary. Jack led the way as they pedaled

west, the morning sun warm on their backs.

Funny, he thought as they rode, how he’d lead the way around town, but Weezy tended to take the point whenever they entered the Barrens. Almost as if

something in Jack knew the Barrens were her turf and made him take a step back when the pines closed in.

As they headed for downtown, Jack noticed people in passing cars slowing to stare and point at them.

Thosearethekidswhofoundthebody.

Cal ing it “downtown” was kind of a local joke. It consisted of eight stores clustered around the traffic signal at the intersection of Quakerton Road and

Route 206, a rutted, patched stretch of two-lane blacktop running from Trenton to the Atlantic City Expressway. Johnson didn’t rate a ful traffic light, just a

blinker.

As Jack had heard it, Quakerton was the town’s name until 1868, when President Andrew Johnson, maybe trying to get away from the impeachment

proceedings in Washington, spent three nights in the town’s one and only inn, now long gone. Seemed no one had liked the name Quakerton—after al ,

not a single Quaker had ever lived there—so they changed the name to Johnsonvil e. By 1900 it had been shortened to Johnson.

The traffic-light cluster consisted of a Krauszer’s convenience store, a used-car lot, and Joe Burdett’s Esso station—the company had changed its

name to Exxon better than ten years ago, but old Joe had never changed the sign. Back east along Quakerton sat Spurlin’s Hardware, Hunningshake’s

pharmacy, gift, and sweet shoppe, the VFW post, and Mr. Rosen’s place, USED. The sign used to say USED GOODS, but the nor’easter of 1962 ripped

off the right side and Mr. Rosen never replaced it.

The store had two large display windows on either side of the front door. Mr. Rosen had told Jack they’d been peopled with naked mannequins when

he’d bought it back in the 1950s from a wedding shop that had gone out of business. Now they were ful of what some people cal ed junk but Jack had

come to see as treasures from the past. USED was his personal time machine.

A bel atop the screen door tinkled as they entered. One step inside and the odors hit him—old wood, old cushioned furniture, old paper, a little dry rot,

a little rust, and a lot of dust. He loved the smel of this place.

“Mister Rosen?” he cal ed. “Mister Rosen?”

A painful y thin, elderly man with a stooped posture, pale skin, and gray hair wandered into view from the rear.

“Al right, already,” he said with a thick accent that sometimes sounded German and sometimes didn’t. “I’m coming, I’m—” He stopped when he saw

Jack. “Wel , if it isn’t the Finder of Corpses.”

“You’ve heard?”

“Heard? Who hasn’t? Probably al over town before you got home.” He studied Jack. “You okay? You want the day off maybe?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Good. They know who it is yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

The old man glanced at the gold-and-glass Jefferson mystery clock on a nearby shelf. “At noon you’re due.”

“I know.” Jack stepped up to the counter and motioned Weezy forward. “But we’ve got something we’d like you to see.”

Mr. Rosen slipped on a pair of glasses as he moved behind the counter. “Something maybe to sel ?”

“No way,” Weezy blurted. “I mean, we’d just like your expert opinion.”

“Expert, shmexpert, I’l tel you what I know.”

Before leaving Weezy’s they’d reassembled the cube with the pyramid inside. Now she unfolded the bath towel she’d wrapped it in for transport, and

placed the cube on the counter.

Mr. Rosen adjusted his glasses for a closer look. “You bring me a box, a black box, and want to know what it is? In my expert opinion, it’s a black box.

Anything inside?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “That’s what we real y want to know about.” She stepped aside. “But it’l open only for Jack.”

Jack didn’t understand why Weezy and Eddie couldn’t do it. He’d shown them, they’d fol owed his directions perfectly, yet it refused to open for anyone

but him.

Which only increased the thing’s creep factor.

He did his thing to make it pop open, and then the three of them stood there at the counter, staring.

Final y Mr. Rosen reached for the pyramid. “May I?”

“Sure,” Jack said as Weezy gave a barely perceptible nod.

Mr. Rosen lifted it, but instead of examining it he set it aside and picked up the unfolded cube. He wiggled it in the air and watched as the six panels

flapped back and forth.

“Fascinating,” he said.

Jack was baffled. “Why?”

“No hinges. The squares appear to be made of thin sheets of some sort of material I’ve never seen. That’s strange enough, but they move back and

forth without any sort of hinge. Just … creases. Odd. Very, very odd.” “Tel me about it,” Jack said.

Mr. Rosen looked at them. “This I’d be wil ing to buy.”

Weezy gave her head an emphatic shake. “Uh-uh. It’s not for sale. Sorry.”

Mr. Rosen nodded as he put it down and picked up the pyramid. He turned it over and over in his hands, making little humming and grunting noises as

he held it up to the light and checked it with a magnifying glass. His sleeve slipped back revealing a string of numbers tattooed on his forearm. Jack had

seen them before but had hesitated to ask about them.

“Let me tel you, I’ve seen many strange objects in my day—you wouldn’t believe the things people bring in to try to sel me—but the likes of this I’ve

never seen. I couldn’t even guess what it is.”

“Oh,” Weezy said, her voice thick with frustration.

Jack hid his own disappointment. “Too bad.” Mr. Rosen had seemed to know a little bit about everything. “We were hoping—”

“But I know someone who might be able to help you.”

“Who?”

Jack half expected him to say, TheGreatandPowerfulOz!But instead …

“Professor Nakamura. He’s a maven of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.”

Weezy looked at Jack. “U of P? How are we going to get to Philadelphia?”

Weezy looked at Jack. “U of P? How are we going to get to Philadelphia?” “You don’t have to. He lives right here in town.”

Jack frowned. He thought he knew pretty much everyone in Johnson. “Never

heard of him.”

“Moved in about a year ago. Keeps to himself, I think, but he’s been in here a

few times. Interesting fel ow. His grandfather ran a laundry in San

Francisco but was driven out in the twenties by the Jap haters—al fired up by Wil

iam Randolph Hearst who hated Jews as wel —and fled back to Japan. Now his grandson has returned as an Ivy League professor. For al we know he

might be teaching the greatgrandchildren of the bigots who drove his

ancestors out. What sweet irony that would be.”

Jack didn’t remember any Oriental customers.

“Have I—?”

Mr. Rosen shook his head. “Hasn’t been in since you started. Col ects Carnival

Glass, of al things.”

“What’s Carnival Glass?”

“Iridescent kitsch is what it is. But he loves it. Bought every piece I had last

spring.”

That explained why Jack had never seen any—he hadn’t started here until late

June.

Mr. Rosen was fishing under the counter. “He left his number to cal as soon as

any new items came in.” Final y he came up with a card. “Here it is. Let me give it a try. I got the impression his schedule at the university isn’t too heavy, so who knows? You may get lucky.”

4

They didn’t. Professor Nakamura wasn’t home but Mr. Rosen left a message to cal him back. Jack and Weezy headed back to her place. He didn’t have

long before he was due at work.

“What do we do now?” he said as they coasted along Quakerton Road.

“Wait and see if this Professor Nakamura can help us, I guess.”

“And if he can’t?”

Weezy shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t you wish the TV had a channel where you could, say, ask a question and it would search every library in the world

and pop the answer onto the screen? Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Yeah.” Then he thought about it a little more. “Or maybe not so great. You’d have to make TVs two-way before that could happen. I mean, it’s just oneway now—we can watch it and that’s that. But if it became two-way … it might start watching us.”

Weezy looked at him and smiled, something she didn’t do often enough. “And you cal meparanoid?”

“Hey, less than five months til Big Brother starts watching.”

NineteenEighty-Fourwas on his high school summer reading list and he’d found it majorly disturbing.

“Yeah, but—” She braked and pointed. “Aw, no!”

Jack looked and saw two guys pushing around a third near the rickety one-lane bridge over Quaker Lake. The pushers were Teddy Bishop and a blond

guy Jack didn’t recognize. Teddy, with long greasy hair and a blubbery body, was sort of the town bul y. His father was a lawyer and that seemed to make

Teddy feel he could get away with anything.

The beard and olive-drab fatigue jacket on the guy getting pushed around identified him as the town’s only Vietnam vet, Walter Erskine—or, as he was

more commonly known, Weird Walt. It looked like Teddy and his friend were trying to grab the brown paper grocery bag Walt had clutched against his

chest.

Before Jack knew it, Weezy was pedaling toward the scene, yel ing, “Hey! Stop that!”

Jack wasn’t surprised. Though young enough to be his daughter, Weezy had a thing for Walt. If she met him on the street she’d walk with him;

sometimes they’d sit on one of the benches down by the lake and talk—about what, Jack had no idea.

No use trying to stop her, so he fol owed. Couldn’t let her face those two creeps alone. He watched her jump off her bike and quickly set the kickstand

—Walt or no Walt, she wasn’t going to let that cube fal . Then she ran over, stepped in front of Teddy, and pushed him back. Not that she had much effect.

Teddy was an ox. But Weezy was fearless.

“Leave him alone!”

“Yeah, lay off!” Walt said, raising a gloved hand. He alwayswore gloves.

Walt had a hippieish look with a gray-streaked beard and long, dark hair. His voice sounded a little slurred. No surprise there. Jack didn’t know of

anyone who’d ever seen him completely sober.

Teddy laughed. “Look at this! Weird Weezy and Weird Walt together. How about that?”

Jack lay his bike on the grass and looked around. Last time Mom had taken him for a checkup he’d been five-five and one-hundred-two pounds. Teddy

had two years, two inches, and maybe fifty lardy pounds over him. He’d need an equalizer. He looked for a weapon, a rock, maybe, but found nothing.

Swel .

He approached the group empty-handed.

“What do you wantwith him?” Weezy was saying. “He’s not bothering you!”

“We just think he should share some of his hooch. We ain’t greedy. We don’t want it al , just a little. So get outta the way.”

Teddy’s friend’s hands moved toward Weezy, as if to shove her aside.

“Don’t touch her!” Jack shouted.

Teddy spun, looked surprised, then grinned. Jack saw now that he was wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt.

“Wel , look who it is. What is it with you two—you find a dead body and suddenly you’re Guardians of the Universe?”

“Just let her take him home.”

Teddy, his expression menacing, took a step closer. “And if I don’t?”

Jack felt his heart racing, but with more anger than fear. And the anger was growing, quickly overtaking the fear, blotting it out.

“You lay one finger on her and I wil kil you.”

The cold way the words came out startled Jack. He sounded like he meant it. And at the moment, he did.

Teddy stopped and stared, then smiled. Jack wondered at that smile until he felt a pair of arms wrap around him, pinning his arms at his sides.

“Gotcha, squirt!” said Teddy’s friend.

Jack had been so intent on Teddy and Weezy he’d forgotten the friend.

Teddy’s grin widened as he cocked a fist back to his ear. “Let’s see who’s gonna kil who.”

Jack lowered his head as he struggled wildly to get free. This was going to hurt. He heard Weezy scream, quickly fol owed by a cry of pain from Teddy,

and another from the guy holding him. Suddenly he was free. He leaped to the side, raising his fist, ready to swing, but stopped.

Teddy and his friend were cowering and rubbing their heads. Between them stood a heavyset old woman brandishing a silver-headed cane. She wore

a long black dress that reached the sidewalk and had a black scarf wrapped around her neck. Like Walt’s gloves, she wore that scarf no matter what the

weather. Beside her stood a three-legged dog.

Mrs. Elizabeth Clevenger.

But where had she come from? Jack was sure she hadn’t been in sight when he’d come over here. How—?

“Damn you!” Teddy shouted.

He took a step toward her but stopped when the dog bared its teeth and growled. A thick-bodied, big-jawed, floppy-eared mutt—Jack thought he

detected some Lab and some rottweiler along with miscel aneous other breeds—it seemed al muscle under its short, mud-brown coat. He’d seen it lots

of times; the missing leg didn’t slow it down at al .

“That dog bites me my dad’l sue you for every penny you’ve got.”

“If I let him at you it won’t be for a bite—he’l have you for lunch. Al of you.”

One look at the dog’s cold eyes and big jaws and Jack believed her. So did Teddy, apparently, because he backed off.

Jack felt his heartbeat slowing but his hands felt cold, sweaty, shaky. He’d been awful close to getting his face rearranged. Too close.

“Bitch!” Teddy said.

“Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that!”

“You ain’t my mother!”

“Sadly, I am. But only because I cannot pick and choose my children. Now be gone.” She brandished her cane. “Off before I cast a spel on you!”

That seemed to do it. Teddy jammed his hands into his jeans pockets and started to move away.

“C’mon, Joey. Let’s go,” Teddy said to his friend.

“Wait,” Joey said, his eyes wide with disbelief. “‘Cast a spel on you’? Is she kidding?”

“Shut up, Joey. You don’t know nothin’.”

The two of them walked off, arguing, Teddy looking over his shoulder from time to time.

Clearly Joey wasn’t from Johnson. Otherwise he’d have known that old Mrs. Clevenger was a witch.

5

“Are you al right, Walter?” Mrs. Clevenger said, rubbing her hand along his upper arm.

He nodded. “Yeah. They just pushed me around some. I’ve been through worse.”

“I know,” she said. “Much worse.” Then she turned to Weezy. “That was a brave thing you did, child.”

“Not so brave.” She seemed to have trouble meeting Mrs. Clevenger’s eyes. “I was scared half to death.”

“The brave are always scared.” She turned to Jack. “I know why she helped Walter—he’s her friend. But why did you?”

Jack figured the reason was obvious. “Because she’s myfriend.”

The old woman gave him a long stare, her green eyes boring into his, then nodded. “Friendship … there is nothing better, is there?”

“Nothing,” Weezy said, beaming at Jack.

The lady said, “Walter is myfriend. I’m going to walk him home now, but first …” She looked past them to Weezy’s bike. “That box … put it back in the

ground where you found it.”

Jack spun and stared at Weezy’s bike. Only a little bit of the towel wrapping the box was visible in the basket, nothing more.

Weezy’s mouth dropped open. “H-how do you know about that?” Her brow furrowed. “Did Mister Rosen—?”

Mrs. Clevenger smiled, which added more lines to her already wrinkled face. “I know more than I should and less than I’d like to.” The smile

disappeared. “But hear me wel . That thing is an il wind that wil blow nobody good. It was hidden from the light of day for good reason. Return it to its

resting place.” With that she started to turn away. “Besides, you wil never get it open.”

“But we did,” Weezy said.

Mrs. Clevenger’s turn came to an abrupt halt, then she swiveled back to fix Weezy with her stare.

“We?Who is we?”

Weezy looked flustered. “Wel , not ‘we,’ real y. Just Jack. He’s the only one who can do it.”

She turned her gaze on him. “Not such a surprise, I suppose. But that does not change anything. Put it back where it belongs.”

Jack wanted to ask her why that wasn’t a surprise but she’d turned away again. She took Walter’s arm and the two of them began walking, her dog

close behind. Jack heard bottles clinking in Walter’s paper bag.

“Now, Walter,” Jack heard her say, “you’re overdoing the drinking. You must learn to pace yourself, otherwise you won’t survive to complete your

mission.”

Walter shook his shaggy head. “Not surviving … that doesn’t sound so bad. I hate this …” He glanced back at Jack. “Do you think he might be the one?”

“I can understand why you might feel that way. But no, he’s not the one you seek …”

And then their voices faded.

What were they talking about? Why was Walt seeking someone, and why could Mrs. Clevenger understand why he might think Jack was the one? Jack

wanted to trail after them and hear more, then realized that they were both sort of crazy. He couldn’t expect to make sense out of a conversation between

those two.

Weezy too was watching them go, but she had her own questions.

“How could she know about the box?”

Jack shrugged. “And where did she come from? Did you see?”

Weezy shook her head. “No. Al of a sudden she was there, swinging her cane.”

Jack looked at the Old Town bridge that spanned the narrow midsection of the figure-eight-shaped lake. On the far side of that creaky one-lane span lay

the easternmost end of Johnson, where it backed up to the Pine Barrens. The area included the six square blocks of the original Quakerton settlement,

cal ed Old Town for as long as anyone could remember. Nobody knew for sure when it had first been settled. Most said before the revolutionary war— long

before the war.

Mrs. Clevenger lived in Old Town. She must have come from there.

Jack reconstructed the chain of events: Johnson didn’t have a liquor store, so Walt must have been stocking up in Old Town. Some of the Pineys had

stil s, but instead of using corn they made their moonshine from apples. Every Wednesday and Saturday one or two of them would come in from the

woods; they’d park their pickups at the end of Quakerton Road where it dead-ended at the edge of the Pines and sel their applejack. They transported it

in big jugs and customers had to bring their own bottle—or in Walt’s case, bottles—to be fil ed.

Nearly everybody in Johnson had at least one bottle of applejack in the house, and it was an ongoing argument as to who made the best—Gus Sooy or

Lester Appleton.

Walt must have gone over to get his bottles fil ed and run into Teddy and Joey on the way back. Mrs. Clevenger must have been close behind him.

Wel , wherever she came from, Jack was glad she’d arrived when she did.

He looked back and saw the pair turning the corner onto the block where Walt lived with his sister and brother-in-law.

“There goes an odd couple,” he said.

Weezy nodded. “Way odder than Oscar and Felix. She wears that same scarf day in and day out, and he wears gloves no matter how hot it gets.”

“You believe she’s a witch?” Jack said as they headed back to their bikes, and immediately realized Weezy was probably the wrong person to ask.

“Could be. She’s hard to explain. I mean, how did she know about the box?”

Remembering that caused a trickle of uneasiness to go down Jack’s spine.

“I don’t know, but should we fol ow her advice?”

Weezy looked at him as if he’d suddenly grown a second nose and a third eye. “Are you kidding me? Go back and bury it? No way! Even if she isa

witch.”

Obviously he’d struck a nerve. No surprise, though.

“Wel , I don’t believe in witches, but did you hear her threaten Teddy with a spel ?”

“So? I can threaten youwith a spel , Jack. Doesn’t mean I can cast one.”

“Yeah, wel , maybe she just pretends to be a witch. She’s already got the Clevenger name. Maybe letting the more superstitious folks around here think

she’s the Witch of the Pines come back from the dead works for her somehow.”

She and her dog had moved into Old Town a dozen or so years ago. Her mysterious ways—disappearing for months at a time and then suddenly

around every day, wandering through the Pines at night—had started some folks whispering that she was real y Peggy Clevenger, the famous Witch of the

Pines. But how could that be? Everybody knew how the real Peggy Clevenger’s decapitated body had been found in her burned-out cabin back in the

1800s.

Weezy shrugged. “Could be.” She gave Jack a sidelong look. “You know they say Peggy’s body wanders the Barrens at night looking for her head. But

I’m just wondering …”

“Wondering what?”

“What if she found it and put it back on?”

Jack laughed. “Come on! Even you don’t believe that.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. But how do you explain Mrs. Clevenger’s

ever-present scarf? Why would she wear it on a hot day like this?” Weezy dropped into her ooh-spookyvoice. “Unless she’s hiding the seam where she

reattached her head.”

Jack picked up his bike and waited for Weezy to knock back her kickstand. “You gotta be kidding me.”

She looked at him with those big, dark, black-rimmed eyes. “Okay, fine. Your

turn then: Give me another explanation for the scarf.”

Jack couldn’t come up with one. Not for lack of trying. He real y wanted another

explanation. Because he didn’t like Weezy’s one bit.

6

Jack spent the afternoon at USED.

The best thing about the job was he hardly ever did the same thing two days in

a row. One day he’d spend dusting al the antiques and just plain junk; the next he’d supply a third or fourth hand to help Mr. Rosen fix an old clock;

another he’d wind al the clocks and watches—not too far—and make sure they were set to the right time. Today he was helping Mr. Rosen pretty up some

antique oak furniture he’d just bought—a rol top desk and a round table with cool lion paws at the ends of its legs.

The old man’s fingers weren’t as steady as he’d have liked, so he oversaw Jack

as he used a stain-soaked Q-tip to darken scratches in the old wood.

After the stain dried, Jack would polish the surface.

For his time and effort he was paid $3.50 an hour—not a princely sum, but

fifteen cents above minimum wage. Mr. Rosen had offered him the extra if Jack would save him al the government paperwork by taking cash. Fine with

Jack, because that in turn saved him the trouble of finding his birth certificate and applying for a Social Security number.

He supplemented the USED money by mowing lawns, but that was always

subject to the whims of weather—not enough rain and the grass didn’t grow, which meant no mowing; too much rain and the wet grass clogged the mower.

He liked the reliability of the weekly cash from USED.

Not that he had much in the way of expenses. He’d go to the movies—he

planned on seeing ReturnoftheJedifor a fourth time this weekend—or rent sci-fi or horror films on videocassette. He liked to keep up with certain comics

like Cerebusand Roninand SwampThing,but he’d lost interest in most of the titles he used to love—especial y ones with characters in tights. Occasional y

he’d buy a record album if he liked it enough. His latest had been

Prince’s 1999;he’d probably buy Synchronicityby the Police next. Dad had insisted he find a part-time job that would, in his words, “al ow you

enough time to enjoy the summer but help you learn the value of a dol ar.” Wel , fine. But Jack would have found one anyway because he wasn’t

comfortable with an al owance —givenmoney didn’t feel like it was real y his. But the money he earned—that belonged to him and him alone.

The phone rang and Jack hustled over to pick it up.

“USED.”

“Yes, hel o,” said an accented voice. “This is Professor Nakamura. May I speak to

Mister Rosen, please?”

He handed over the phone and listened while Mr. Rosen talked about Carnival

Glass, then moved the conversation to the “artifact” he and Weezy had found.

“You say you’l be around tomorrow morning?” he said into the phone, then

pointed to Jack, who nodded vigorously.

Yeah, they could make it.

“Fine. I’l send them over around ten o’clock.”

Yes! Now they’d get some answers.

He hoped.

7

Jack kept a careful watch for his brother as he sat at the kitchen counter and shel ed his pistachios. He had a pile of sixteen. Four to go. No sign of Tom,

but he had this strange sensation of being watched. He looked around and saw no one. Was he getting paranoid?

Mom had MyFairLadyplaying on the stereo. Of al the soundtracks, that was probably his favorite. He loved the melodies, but the lyrics were

outstanding.

He was thinking about the meeting with this professor tomorrow, and about what he might say, when he knocked half a dozen unshel ed pistachios off

the counter. As he squatted to gather them up he saw a shadow swoop by. Before he could react, Tom had scooped up the shel ed pistachios and tossed

them into his mouth. Without breaking stride or even looking around, he hit the back door and was outside before Jack could get over his shock and

react.

Rage blazed. He looked at the cutlery drawer and imagined himself grabbing one of the Ginsu knives his father had bought from the TV last year and

chasing after Tom. But what would he do when he caught him—cut off his hands?

Nice fantasy, but …

Calming himself, Jack sat and stared at the spot where his pistachios had sat. How’d that expression go? Foolmeonce,shameonyou…foolme

twice,shameonme.

Yeah, he thought. Shame on me for leaving those out there. But that didn’t mean Tom wasn’t due a little payback.

He was calm now, calm enough to remember another old saying: Revengeisa dishbestservedcold.

Cold … he’d have to think on this.

Relax, Tom. Enjoy the moment. Rest easy that you’re home free. But your time is coming. Soon you’re going to regret messing with me.

Kate rushed into the room then, with Mom and Dad close behind.

“Jack, they’ve identified the body you found!”

He held his breath.

Dad said, “Anyone we know?”

Mom’s hands folded under her chin. “It’s not that Kurek girl, is it?”

“No. Dental records identified him as Anton Boruff, a jeweler from Mount Hol y who disappeared two years ago. It’l be in the papers tomorrow.” She

lowered her voice. “But what won’t be in the papers is that the police have suspected him of being a fugitive.”

“Real y?” Jack said. This was getting better and better. “From the law?”

Kate nodded. “Seemed he’d been ripping people off, sel ing fake diamonds as investment grade. The police thought he’d absconded with the money,

but I guess one of his victims got to him before he made his getaway.”

“At least he’s not a local,” Mom said. “I mean, it’s a shame he’s dead, of course, rest his soul. Just that I was afraid it was someone we knew. The

thought of having a kil er among us …” She shuddered. “But if he’s from Mount Hol y—”

“Wel ,” Kate said, “he must have been in and out of here a lot because he was some sort of pooh-bah in the Lodge.”

“Oh, dear,” Mom said. “I’ve never liked those people. They’re so sneaky. I wish they’d find someplace else to meet.”

Everybody cal ed it simply “the Lodge” but Jack had heard it was a branch of something cal ed the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. The Lodge

building had been in Old Town forever. The Order was secretive about its activities and purposes and membership. One thing everybody knew: It was

veryselective about who it accepted. Every once in a while a newcomer to town would try to join, only to learn that membership was by invitation only

—you had to be asked.Nobody knew what the qualifications were. Rumor had it the membership included some of the state’s most influential and

powerful people.

“How do they know he was with the Lodge?” Jack said.

“Because he had some unrotted skin left on his back and the Septimus Lodge’s seal had been branded into it.”

Mom gasped, Dad winced.

Everyone knew that seal: an intricate starlike design that made you a little dizzy if you looked too close. A huge model of it hung above the Lodge’s front

door.

Smiling, Kate raised a hand before Jack could speak.

“I know how your mind works, Jack, and the answer is no: He wasn’t tortured with the brand or anything like that. The medical examiner said it was

many years old. Probably some sort of rite they go through.”

Jack hesitated to ask his next question. He didn’t want to seem too morbid, but he had to know.

Final y he cleared his throat and said, “What about the ritual?”

Kate shook her head. “I asked Tim about that and he says they’re holding the details back for now.” She smiled. “But don’t worry. I’l find out. Jenny

Styles from Cherry Hil —you’ve met her, Mom. She’s a year ahead of me at med school, but guess where she’s externing.”

Jack and his mother shrugged.

“The ME’s office. She’s been assisting with the autopsies. I know I’l be able to get it out of her. She lovesto talk.”

“Cool.” Jack could always depend on Kate. “I wonder if they stuffed his mouth with the fake diamonds.”

Mom said, “Jack!”

“Wel , the Mafia stuffs a dead bird in a stoolie’s mouth, so I just thought—”

“That’s not exactly a ritual,” Kate said.

A ritual … Jack figured the possibilities would haunt his dreams tonight.

“Any other news?”

She laughed. “Isn’t that enough? Don’t worry, I’m on the case.” She lowered her voice to a mock announcer’s tone, like Walter Cronkite’s. “News

bul etins wil be reported as soon as they’re received.”

“Great.”

He scooped up the unshel ed pistachios and dropped them back into the bag. Tom’s theft had stolen his appetite for them.

“I’m heading over to Steve’s.”

Steve had been cal ing al day, saying Jack had to come over tonight because his father had something to show him.

Dad said, “How’s that computer coming along?”

“Okay, I guess. The instructions aren’t very clear.”

“Wel , my hat’s off to you for trying. I know what I went through with that Apple One.”

Jack wondered if they’d ever get finished, what with Steve Brussard getting half smashed every night.

8

“So you saw only the head?” Mr. Brussard said.

He and Jack and Steve sat around the kitchen table—the boys drinking Pepsi,

Steve’s father sipping some sort of mixed drink. He’d started quizzing

Jack the instant he arrived.

Steve’s expression was avid. “Was it gross?”

“Majorly.”

Steve was a reduced Xerox copy of his father—same round face, same hazel

eyes, same thick, curly reddish hair that clung to the scalp like a bad

toupee.

“So that was it?” Mr. Brussard said, leaning closer. “You didn’t see the rest of the

body?”

“No, and maybe I’m glad I didn’t. I mean, what with it being a ritual murder and

al .”

Steve slammed his palm on the table. “What?No way! You’re putting me on!” His father had his eyes squeezed shut and was rubbing them with a thumb and

forefinger. “What sort of ritual?”

Me and my big mouth, Jack thought.

He’d forgotten that no one was supposed to know about that. At least not yet. “I don’t know. They’re … they’re keeping that secret.”

“Have they identified him yet?”

With a start Jack wondered how Mr. Brussard knew it was a him,and then

realized he’d been thinking of the corpse as a “him” as wel .

“Maybe it’s Marcie Kurek,” Steve said.

Marcie again. Wel , no surprise. For a while last year her disappearance had

been al anyone talked about.

Jack figured he could tel them the identity since it would be in tomorrow’s

papers. But he couldn’t remember the man’s name.

“A jeweler from Mount Hol y.”

“Anton Boruff,” Mr. B said in a low voice.

Steve’s eyes were wide. “Dad, you knewhim?”

His father said, “Heard of him. It was in al the papers a few years ago. Vanished

without a trace. Some people thought he’d left his wife and run off with another woman, but …” He shrugged.

Jack couldn’t mention the diamonds, and anyway he was tired of talking about

the body. Looking for a way off it, he remembered Steve’s cal s.

“Steve said you had something you wanted to show me, Mister Brussard.” The man looked confused for a couple of seconds. “What? Oh, right. But it’s not

something to see. More like hear. We’l have to go into the living room.” They rose and fol owed him until he turned and pointed to the middle of the

family den floor.

“Al right, boys, sit yourselves down right there—that’s what we cal the sweet

spot.” Jack had no idea what was going on, but complied. Sipping from their Pepsis, he

and Steve situated themselves cross-legged on the shag carpet

while Mr. Brussard fiddled with a bunch of electronic components racked on a

shelf at the far end of the room.

“Now I know you’ve heard parts, or maybe even al of this before, but you’ve

never heard it like this.”

He seemed to be trying to sound cheerful when he real y wasn’t. If that was the

case, he was doing a lousy job.

“Heard what?” Steve said.

“Tchaikovsky’s 1812Overture.”

Steve groaned. “Aw, man! Classical music?”

Jack was no fan himself. The only thing he liked less was opera. Listening to

some of those fat ladies’ wailing voices was like fingernails on a

blackboard.

“Wait. Just wait. It’s a long piece, but I’m going to get you to the good part. This

was digital y recorded and they used realcannonsfor the finale. You’ve got to hear it to believe it.”

Jack didn’t know what “digital y recorded” meant, but real cannons … that might

be cool.

Mr. B fiddled with some buttons. “Let me advance it to the sixteen-minute mark

so as not to strain your short attention spans. There. Now … listen.”

With a flourish he hit a button and instantly the living room fil ed with an

orchestra playing a familiar tune Jack had heard a mil ion times on commercials and TV shows. But loud.And so clear. No hiss, no static, no pops … just pure

music.

And then the cannons started blasting. Jack jumped and almost dropped his

Pepsi can. He looked at Steve who was looking back al wide-eyed and

amazed. The explosions were so real and so loud Jack could feel them vibrating

through the floor into his butt. He started laughing with the pure excess of the sound.

When the cannons stopped, Steve’s father turned off the music and hit a button

that popped a little drawer out of one of the components. Then he turned to them.

“Ever hear anything like that? You’ve just experienced state-of-the-art tweeters

and mid-range speaks plus a sixteen-inch subwoofer.” He held up a

silvery plastic disk. “Al playing this.”

“What’s that?” Steve said.

“It’s cal ed a compact disc, or CD, for short. It’s the latest thing in music.” Steve’s father was known as a gadget freak. As soon as anything new came out,

especial y in electronics, he’d be on it.

Jack had never heard of a CD, but he wanted to hear more. The sound quality,

the bone-rattling bass … the possibilities …

“Do any of these CDs have real music—I mean, rock music?” He looked at Steve.

“Just think what Def Leppard would sound like.”

Steve grinned. “‘Foolin’!’ Yeah. That would be awesome!”

“Sorry, guys. Not much available yet, and it’s mostly classical. But in the future …

who knows?”

“Can you play that again, Dad?”

He popped the disc back in the tray, slid it closed, and did his thing with the

buttons.

“You listen. I’l be right back.”

As soon as his father left the room, Steve hopped up and rushed to the nearby

liquor cabinet. While the cannons boomed and shook the room, he

pul ed an unlabeled bottle from within and poured a long shot into his Pepsi. He

replaced the bottle, closed the door, and was back at Jack’s side just as the music began to wind down.

From upstairs he heard Mrs. Brussard yel ing, “Would you pleaseturn that noise

down?”

“Okay, guys,” Mr. B said as he hurried back into the room. “I’ve got some cal s

to make, so why don’t you two hit the basement and get to work on that computer.”

Steve jumped up. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

As Jack fol owed Steve toward the basement door he glanced back and saw Mr. Brussard standing by his rack of stereo equipment, staring off into

space with a worried expression.

Though the music had been awesome, he wondered if Mr. Brussard had used this new CD player as an excuse to get him over so he could quiz him

about the body.

9

“Are you tryingto get caught?” Jack said when they reached the finished basement.

Steve grinned at him. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, that just makes it more fun.” He offered his Pepsi to Jack. “Sip?”

Jack hesitated, then took the can and swigged.

Awful.

“You do know how to ruin a good Pepsi,” he said, handing it back. “What’s in there this time?”

Steve tended to grab whatever was available from the liquor cabinet. He didn’t seem to care.

“Applejack.”

Jack shook his head. Dad had given him a taste once—”To take the mystery out of it,” he’d said—and he’d hated it. Burned his tongue and nose and

made him cough. Same with Scotch, although that tasted more mediciney. And beer … he didn’t know about other brands, but Dad’s Carling Black Label was bitter. He couldn’t imagine ever liking beer.

Give him Pepsi any day.

“Let’s get to work.”

They had al the pieces to the Heathkit H-89 laid out on a card table. The company had been bought and had stopped making the kits, but Steve’s

father had picked up this 1979 model for a bargain price. Jack couldn’t wait to get it assembled and up and running. It looked so much cooler than Dad’s

Apple because it was al one piece: keyboard, monitor, and floppy drive al in the same casing.

According to the instructions they were almost halfway there. They’d have been further along if Steve had been more help. But he’d developed this thing

for liquor.

He hadn’t always been like this. In fact he’d never been like this before he went away to that Pennsylvania soccer camp last month. He was a great

soccer player, and because of that he tended to get teamed up with older players. Jack had a feeling some of those older players had introduced Steve to

hard liquor and it had flipped some sort of switch in his head.

“Why don’t you put off your cocktail or whatever until we’ve got the CPU instal ed.”

The Heathkit came with a Z-80 processor, whatever that was, which was the heart and brain of the computer. If they didn’t instal it correctly, nothing

would work.

“Okay, okay.”

He took a long swig before placing the can on the far corner of the table, then he moved up beside Jack to study the diagram. Jack was a little worried

about him.

“Stil don’t know why you want to ruin the taste of a Pepsi.”

“Wel , the booze tastes too bad to drink straight.”

“Then why—?”

“Because maybe I like the way it makes me feel, okay?” he said with an edge in his voice.

Obviously Steve didn’t like talking about it. Maybe he knew he had a problem. Jack tried warning him off another way.

“Sooner or later your dad’s going to notice his bottles getting empty, and since they can’t be emptying themselves …”

Steve gave a dismissive wave. “My dad’s too busy at the Lodge to notice.”

Jack couldn’t hide his surprise. “The Lodge? Your father’s a member of the Lodge?”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Like forever. Why?”

“Nothing.”

But Jack’s mind whirled. Just a little while ago when Steve had asked if his father had known the dead man, Mr. Brussard had said he’d “heard of him.”

But if they were both members of the Lodge, wouldn’t he have more than heard of him?

1

Professor Nakamura lived on the other side of Route 206 in the wel -to-do area of Johnson—the most recently developed section, where they had real

sidewalks and curbs and where homes tended to be bigger and more lavish than regular folks’. Since it occupied the westernmost end of town, as far as

possible from Old Town on the east, its residents had started cal ing their neighborhood “New Town.” The name never caught on with anyone else.

A little after nine-thirty, Weezy swung by Jack’s place with the cube and the two of them biked down Quakerton Road. They had plenty of time so they

rode slowly, weaving back and forth as they talked.

Jack told her what Kate had said about the identity of the corpse and how he had the Lodge’s seal branded on his back.

“The Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order,” Weezy said, shaking her head. “Should have known.”

“Why should you have known?”

“Al right, I should have guessedwhen you said ritual murder.”

Jack’s stomach did a flip. “They kil people?”

Weezy shrugged. “Who knows what they do? They’re rumored to have al sorts of rituals. I’ve tried to read up on the order but there’s almost no hard

facts. Lots of theories, but it’s so secretive no one seems to know much for sure. One thing that’s certain is the Ancient Septimus Order is real y and truly

ancient.Lots older than the Masons.”

“The masons? You mean bricklayers?”

Weezy rol ed her eyes. “No, another secret society. The order has lodges al over the world and they cal the shots in many places. Like New Jersey, for

instance. It’s said nothing gets done in this state unless the Lodge approves. Everybody chalks it up to corruption, but it’s the Lodge.”

Jack had to laugh. “C’mon, Weez! We’re talking about Johnson, New Jersey, here. The butt end of nowhere. If this order is oh-so-powerful, don’t you

think it’d set up in Trenton or Newark? I mean, anywhere but Johnson.”

Weezy gave him that tolerant smile she used when she was about to tel someone what she thought everyone should already know.

“The Lodge wasn’t built in Johnson … Johnson—or Quakerton, as it was cal ed back then—was built around the Lodge.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Lodge was here first. Some say it was here even before Columbus came to the Americas, but no one can prove that.”

“How can that be? Look at the building. It can’t be that old.”

Another eye rol . “Ever hear of rebuilding and remodeling? Anyway, some accounts—and I can’t say how reliable they are—say that members had

settled themselves around the Lodge in what they cal ed Quakerton—what we now cal Old Town—long before the Pilgrims arrived.”

“How is that possible?”

“Wel , it’s pretty wel accepted that the Norse and even Irish had settlements in North America in the eleventh century. Who’s to say who else was

around? But here’s what’s real y interesting: If the Lodge’s settlement was already here when the Pilgrims arrived in 1620, how could they have cal ed it

Quakerton when the first Quakers didn’t even exist until 1647?”

Jack said, “I don’t know about you, but that sounds like pretty good proof that somebody”—his turn to give a look—”has her dates screwed up.”

“Maybe it meant something else. Maybe their idea of a Quaker wasn’t our idea of a Quaker.”

Jack found that unsettling, but couldn’t say why.

“And another thing—” She stopped and pointed. “Look!”

They’d reached the light at the highway, and Jack saw what had caught her attention. The flashing lights of a pair of cop cars and an ambulance were

spinning like mad at Sumter’s used cars across 206.

He looked at Weezy, she at him, and they both nodded.

Jack led the way across the highway and into the car lot where they stopped behind two deputies. Both were watching a guy and a woman from the

volunteer first-aid squad work on an unconscious man who lay spread-eagled on the pavement. They’d torn open his shirt and slipped some kind of

plastic board under his back. The first-aid guy was on his knees, thumping on the man’s chest while the woman held a face mask over his nose and

mouth and squeezed a footbal -shaped bag to pump air into his lungs.

Jack wondered who it could be. He noticed one of the deputies was Tim but didn’t dare ask him. He’d shoo them away for sure.

The first-aid guy was bathed in sweat. He stopped thumping and listened to the chest while pressing two fingers against the man’s throat. Then he

leaned back and looked at his watch.

“Twenty minutes of CPR and nothing. He’s a goner.” Another look at his watch. “I’m pronouncing him at nine-forty-seven.”

The deputies pul ed out pads and pens and made notes as the woman first-aider removed the mask. The dead man’s face was white, his mouth hung

open, and his glassy eyes stared at nothing.

Jack and Weezy gasped in unison when they recognized Mr. Sumter. Tim must have heard, because he turned and saw them.

“Okay, you two. Move on. Nothing to see here.”

Jack said, “What happened?”

“Looks like a heart attack.” He waved them off. “Come on, now. Get going. Clear the area. Haven’t you two seen enough dead bodies this week?”

That startled Jack. It hadn’t occurred to him. Come to think of it, he and Weezy had seen two dead people in less than forty-eight hours.

Wow.

As they were wheeling away he glanced back just as the first-aiders were rol ing Mr. Sumter onto his side to remove the plastic board from under him.

His shirt had ridden up, revealing a symbol scarred into his back.

The seal of the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order.

Two dead men … both Lodgers. But they couldn’t possibly be connected.

Could they?

2

Jack led the way to Professor Nakamura’s place.

He lived on Emerson Lane, home to Johnson’s biggest houses, and the only

street in town that ended in a cul-de-sac. The so-cal ed New Town used to be Eppinger’s sod farm, and so it had no native trees. Any oaks and maples in

sight had been trucked in and planted by the homeowners. A cornfield

stretched to the north, the leaves on the green stalks waving gently in the

breeze. To the south lay an orchard, its trees sagging with fruit.

The professor answered the door and welcomed them in. A chubby little man

with a round face, gold-rimmed glasses, short black hair graying at the temples, he led them to a library. Al sorts of stone heads and statuettes vied for

space with the books crammed on the shelves. A big window overlooked a sand garden in his backyard. Three big lava stones of varying sizes had been

set at odd intervals, and the sand had been raked into curving patterns around them. Jack liked the effect. Very peaceful.

“Now, what have you brought me?” the professor said in a soft, accented voice

as he seated himself behind a mahogany desk. Jack recognized it as

mahogany because Mr. Rosen had been teaching him about the different kinds

of wood that went into the old furniture in his store. “Mister Rosen says I wil find it very interesting.”

Weezy handed Jack the cube. He placed it on the desk blotter and opened it. The professor stared at the pyramid for a moment, then ran his hands over its

surface. He removed a magnifying glass from a drawer and gave it a

quick once-over.

“You found this in the woods?” He spoke without looking up.

“Yes.” Weezy glanced at Jack. “We dug it out of something that might be a burial

mound.”

He grunted and continued his examination. “Real y. And you think it is … what?

Some sort of ancient artifact?”

“We don’t know,” Jack said. “That’s why we brought it to you.” Professor Nakamura grunted again, then put down the pyramid, took off his

glasses, and looked at them. His lips were pursed like he’d just bitten into a lemon.

“Are you trying to hoax me?”

The question took Jack by surprise. “Hoax? No way! We real y dug that up

and—”

“If that is true, then someone is hoaxing you.”

“Impossible!” Weezy said. She looked majorly upset. “Nobody knew where we’d

be digging, not even us!”

The professor raised a hand and smiled. “No-no. Not you purposely. Anyone.

Hoaxers like to find a mound—burial or otherwise—and plant phony

artifacts in them, then wait until they’re found.”

“But—”

“A tablet with Phoenician writing ‘discovered’ in Grave Creek mound in West

Virginia in eighteen hundreds— fake.Piltdown man— fake.Ica stones from Peru— fake.”

“I don’t know about that stuff,” Jack said. “But I can tel you, if someone buried

that cube and hoped someone else would find it, he must have been

ready to wait a long, long time. Because it was buried in an area of the Barrens

where hardly anyone goes.”

Professor Nakamura frowned. “But you said it was a mound. Someone must

have told you about it.”

“Uh-uh.” Jack jerked his thumb at Weezy. “Shefound it.”

The professor stared at her. “This is true?”

She nodded.

He picked up the pyramid again, tracing his pinkie finger along the symbols. “These symbols look pre-Sumerian, which would make them six or seven

thousand years old. But on this pyramid … notice how cleanly they have been etched into its surface? Back then, scratching quil s on wet clay tablets was state

of the art. So it is obviously a hoax.”

“It’s not a hoax,” Weezy said. “Can’t you feel it? It feels old.”

The professor offered half a smile. “Archaeology and anthropology cannot

operate on feelings, young miss.”

Weezy looked ready to explode, so Jack jumped in. “Isn’t there some

carbon-dating test you can do to see how old it is?”

His smile broadened. “Carbon-fourteen dating is not a test one does in one’s

basement. And besides, carbon-fourteen can date only organic material, like wood or bone.” He tapped the pyramid. “This is not organic.” “There must be someway,” Jack said.

The professor sat silent, as if thinking. Final y he said, “I suppose we can try

potassium argon dating. It can date nonorganic material—”

“Great! Let’s do it.”

“I must take this to the university then—”

“No!” Weezy cried. “You can’t take it away!”

He spread his hands. “Then I cannot help you.”

Jack touched her arm. “Come on, Weez. Otherwise we’l never know.” “I’l never see it again. I just know it.”

She looked at him with glistening eyes—were those tears? He hoped she wasn’t

going to cry. He’d never seen Weezy cry and didn’t want to now.

“Look—”

“I final y found one, Jack,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I final y

got my hands on one of the secrets. I can’t just let it go.”

He had a sudden idea.

“Hey, why don’t we compromise? Keep the box and let the professor take the

pyramid.”

She opened her mouth as if to say no without even thinking, but stopped. After a

moment’s thought she said, “Look, if we’ve got to give him something, let him take the box. I want the pyramid.”

“The pyramid wil work out better,” the professor said. “Its engravings might be

the easiest to date most accurately.”

Weezy chewed her lip, her gaze locked on the pyramid. Final y she said, “Okay.

But you promise I’l get it back? You promise?”

“I promise,” the professor said. “My department handles artifacts and specimens

al the time. We are experts. You have nothing to fear.”

“I hope not. But there’s something I’ve got to do before you take it.” She looked

around. “Can I have a pencil and a piece of paper?”

“Of course.”

The professor produced them immediately from the top drawer of his desk.

Weezy grabbed the pyramid and laid the paper over one of its sides. Then she began rubbing the pencil over it. The engraved symbol appeared. She did

this with al six sides.

“Don’t forget the bottom,” Jack said.

Weezy nodded and finished up with that. She put down the pyramid and held up

the paper to look over her work.

“Got it.”

Jack peered over her shoulder at the strange symbols. What could they mean?

He gathered up the flattened panels and snapped them back into a cube while the professor lifted a hard-sided briefcase from the floor. He laid it on

the desk, opened it, and placed the pyramid inside.

As he snapped it closed, Jack glanced at Weezy. She looked like some of those mothers he’d see at the bus stop every fal when they sent their child

off to school for the first time.

3