Fablehaven: The Complete Series (89 page)

“I’d hate to barge in on your fun,” Kendra snapped. She had not been very polite to Slaggo or Voorsh ever since they had almost fed her to her captive grandparents.

Slaggo leered. “You’d think they locked your favorite pet in the Box, the way you sulk.”

“I’m not pining for her,” Kendra corrected. “I’m thinking.”

He took a deep breath, surveying the hall smugly. “Hard to picture more inspiring surroundings,” he admitted. “Nothing like the futile moans of the condemned to set your wheels turning.”

The goblin proceeded forward, licking his lips. He was short, bony, and greenish, with beady eyes and bat-wing ears. He had looked much more fearsome when Kendra was temporarily seven inches tall.

Instead of passing her, he halted again, this time gazing at the Quiet Box. “I’d like to know who was in there before,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I’ve wondered every day for decades . . . now I’ll never know.”

The Quiet Box had contained the same secret prisoner ever since it had been brought to Fablehaven, until the Sphinx had swapped Vanessa for the mysterious occupant. The Sphinx had insisted that only in the Quiet Box would Vanessa be unable to use her ability to control others in their sleep. If Vanessa’s final message were true, and the Sphinx was evil, he had probably released an ancient and powerful collaborator. If the message were false, the Sphinx was merely relocating the prisoner to a new place of confinement. None of them had seen the identity of the secret captive, only a chained figure whose head was hidden by a coarse burlap sack.

“I wouldn’t mind knowing his identity either,” Kendra said.

“I got a whiff of him, you know,” Slaggo said casually, giving Kendra a sidelong glance. “I lay low in the shadows as the Sphinx walked him by.” He was clearly proud of the fact.

“Could you tell anything about him?” Kendra asked, taking the bait.

“I’ve always had a reliable sniffer,” Slaggo said, wiping his nostrils with his forearm and rocking back on his heels. “Definitely a male. Something odd about the scent, uncommon, hard to place. Not entirely human, if I were to guess.”

“Interesting,” Kendra said.

“Wish I could have gotten a closer smell,” Slaggo lamented. “I would have tried, but the Sphinx is not a man to trifle with.”

“What do you know about the Sphinx?”

Slaggo shrugged. “Same as anyone. He’s supposed to be wise and powerful. He smells exactly like a man. If he’s something else, he hides it perfectly. Man or not, he’s very old. He carries the scent of another age.”

Slaggo of course knew nothing about the note. “He seems like a good person,” Kendra said.

Slaggo shrugged. “Can I offer you some glop?” He swung the bucket in front of her.

“I’ll pass,” Kendra said, trying not to inhale the putrid stench.

“Fresh off the fire,” he said. She shook her head, and he strolled away. “Enjoy the darkness.”

Kendra almost smiled. Slaggo had no idea how well she could see without light. He probably thought she adored sitting alone in the dark. Which meant he thought she was his kind of girl. Of course, she
had
made a habit of spending time alone in a dungeon, so maybe he wasn’t far off.

When the goblin was out of sight and the orange flicker of his torch had dwindled, Kendra arose and placed a palm against the smooth wood of the Quiet Box. Despite the fact that Vanessa had betrayed them, despite the reality that she was a proven liar, despite her obvious motivation for pretending to possess valuable information, Kendra believed the message on the floor, and she longed to know more.

* * *

Seth arrived at the dinner table wearing his best poker face. Coulter, the magical relics expert, had cooked meat loaf, with baked potatoes, broccoli, and fresh rolls on the side. Everyone was already seated—Grandpa, Grandma, Dale, Coulter, and Kendra.

“Tanu and Warren haven’t shown up yet?” Seth asked.

“They called a few minutes ago,” Grandpa said, holding up his new cell phone. “Tanu’s plane got in late. They’re grabbing food on the road. They should arrive in about an hour.”

Seth nodded. The afternoon had ended profitably. He had already tucked away his share of the gold in the attic bedroom he shared with Kendra, the leather pouch containing the treasure bundled in a pair of athletic shorts at the bottom of one of his drawers. He still found it hard to believe he had stashed the gold before anybody could sabotage his success. All he had to do now was play it cool.

He wondered how much the gold was worth. Probably a few hundred thousand at least. Not bad for a not-yet-thirteen-year-old.

The one complication was the nipsies. Surely, as caretaker, Grandpa Sorenson knew of their existence. Seth was pretty sure Grandpa Sorenson would want an update on what had happened to them so he could investigate further. Who was the evil master the warlike nipsies had mentioned? Could it be the Sphinx? There were any number of shady candidates at Fablehaven. Despite the action Newel had taken to prevent the scary nipsies from defeating the nice ones, Seth felt certain that the conflict was not over. If he did nothing, the good nipsies could be wiped out.

Still, Seth hesitated. If he spilled what he had learned about the nipsies, Grandpa would know he had been venturing into prohibited areas of Fablehaven. Not only would he get privileges revoked, he would almost certainly have to return the gold. It made Seth shrivel inside to think of how disappointed everyone would be in him.

There was a chance Grandpa would discover what was wrong with the nipsies as part of his routine duties watching over the preserve. But considering the defenses the nipsies had erected, Grandpa might not have any plans to visit them in the near future. Would he find out what was going on in time to prevent a tragedy? Ever since Kendra had discovered the final note from Vanessa, everyone had been so preoccupied by events outside of Fablehaven that Seth doubted whether anyone would check up on the nipsies for a long while. There was even a chance that Grandpa knew nothing about them.

“We’ll still meet tonight to discuss what Tanu and Warren have discovered, right?” Kendra sounded concerned.

“Of course,” Grandma said, spooning broccoli onto her plate.

“Do we know if they had much success?” Kendra asked.

“All I know is that Tanu failed to find Maddox,” Grandpa said, referring to the fairy dealer who had ventured onto the fallen Brazilian preserve. “And Warren has done some serious traveling. I refuse to risk talking about the details of our secret concern on the telephone.”

Seth added some ketchup to his meat loaf and took a bite. It was almost too hot, but tasted great. “What about my folks?” Seth asked. “Are they still pressuring you to send us home?”

“We’re running out of excuses to stretch your stay much longer,” Grandma said, giving Grandpa a worried glance. “School begins in just a couple of weeks.”

“We can’t go home!” Kendra exclaimed. “Especially not until we prove whether the Sphinx is innocent. The Society knows where we live, and they’re not afraid to approach us there.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” Grandpa said. “The problem remains how to persuade your parents.”

Kendra and Seth had been at Fablehaven the entire summer under the pretense of helping to care for their injured grandfather. He really had been injured when they had first arrived, but the artifact they had collected from the inverted tower had healed him. The original plan had been for Kendra and Seth to stay for a couple of weeks. Grandma and Grandpa had managed to extend that to over a month through telephone conversations—Kendra and Seth kept reporting how much fun they were having, and Grandma and Grandpa emphasized how helpful they were being.

After a month, Grandpa could tell that his son and daughter-in-law were truly getting impatient, so he invited them to visit for a week. Grandma and Grandpa had decided that the best solution would be to help them discover the truth about Fablehaven, so they could all openly discuss the danger that Kendra and Seth were in. But no matter how many clues they left or hints they offered, Scott and Marla refused to catch on. In the end, Tanu had fixed them a tea that left them open to suggestion, and Grandpa, wearing a phony cast, had secured another month for the kids to visit. Yet once again, their time was almost up.

“Tanu is coming back,” Seth reminded them. “Maybe he can slip Dad some more of that tea.”

“We need to get beyond temporary remedies,” Grandma said. “The current threats could persist for years. Perhaps the Society of the Evening Star has lost interest in you now that the artifact is no longer at Fablehaven. But my instincts tell me otherwise.”

“As do mine,” Grandpa agreed, giving Kendra a significant stare.

“Can we force Mom and Dad to see through the illusion hiding the creatures here?” Kendra asked. “Just give them milk and point them toward the fairies? Take them into the barn to see Viola?”

Grandpa shook his head. “I’m not sure. Total unbelief is a powerful inhibitor. It can blind an individual to obvious truths, no matter what others do or say.”

“The milk wouldn’t work on them?” Seth asked.

“It might not,” Grandpa said. “That is part of the reason I let people discover the secrets of Fablehaven through finding clues. First off, it gives them a choice about whether or not they want to know the truth about this place. And secondly, the curiosity wears down their unbelief. It doesn’t require much belief for the milk to work, but complete unbelief can be tough to overcome.”

“And you think Mom and Dad have no belief in them?” Kendra asked.

“As to the possibility of mythical creatures actually existing, they appear to have none at all,” Grandpa said. “I left them much more obvious clues than I provided for you and Seth.”

“I even had a conversation with them where I all but told them the truth about Fablehaven and my role here,” Grandma said. “I stopped once I could see they were gawking at me like I belonged in an asylum.”

“In some ways their unbelief is good for their safety,” Grandpa said. “It can be a protection from the influence of dark magic.”

Seth scowled. “Are you saying that magical creatures only exist if we believe in them?”

Grandpa dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “No. They exist independent of our belief. But usually some belief is necessary in order for us to interact with them. Furthermore, most magical creatures dislike unbelief enough to steer clear of it, in much the same way you or I might avoid an offensive odor. Unbelief is part of the reason many creatures chose to flee to these preserves.”

“Would it be possible for any of us to stop believing in magical creatures?” Kendra wondered.

“Don’t bother,” Coulter huffed. “Nobody could try harder than I have. Most of us just make the best of it.”

“Gets pretty hard to doubt once you’ve interacted with them,” Dale agreed. “Belief hardens into knowledge.”

“There are some who learn of this life and then flee it,” Grandma said. “They avoid the preserves and substances like Viola’s milk that can open their eyes. By turning their backs on all things magical, they let their knowledge lie dormant.”

“Sounds like good sense to me,” Coulter muttered.

“Your Grandma and Grandpa Larsen retired prematurely from their involvement with our secret society,” Grandpa said.

“Grandma and Grandpa Larsen knew about magical creatures?” Seth exclaimed.

“As much as we do or more,” Grandma said. “They ended their involvement around the time Seth was born. We all had such high hopes for your parents. We introduced them to one another and quietly encouraged their courtship. When Scott and Marla refused to show interest in our secret, your Grandma and Grandpa Larsen seemed to lose their commitment.”

“We had been friends with the Larsens since your parents were children,” Grandpa mentioned.

“Wait a minute,” Kendra said. “Did Grandma and Grandpa Larsen really die accidentally?”

“As far as we have ever been able to tell, yes,” Grandma said.

“They had retired from our community ten years prior,” Grandpa said. “It was simply a tragic mishap.”