Stealing Magic (23 page)

The staff at the museum was grateful to Ruthie and Jack for exposing the criminal in their midst. “I never really warmed up to that Ms. Pommeroy,” the archivist told them later. “She was always so perfect, never a hair out of place. That’s just not normal.”

The story did make the newspapers, as Jack had predicted—the front page! “Sixth Graders At It Again; Use Spring Break to Catch Thief,” one headline read. At both of their houses the voice mail was overloaded with messages from reporters. At Oakton, they were
congratulated during morning announcements, and the whole school could be heard applauding the local heroes.

By Friday, Ruthie declared to Jack, “I’m kinda getting tired of all this, aren’t you?”

“Don’t worry. Everyone will forget by Monday.” He was only off by a few days.

It was Dr. Bell who approached them about making a return trip to the rooms. Ever since the day they had come to her office and unleashed her memories, she had been pondering what it would feel like to experience the magic one more time. “I’d like to put the silver box back myself,” she explained.

The following Sunday the weather was wonderful in the city, and a festival taking place in Grant Park ensured small crowds in Gallery 11.

“Stay really close to me, Dr. Bell, and keep your hand where I can grab it,” Ruthie instructed. “It will happen fast. As soon as the shrinking stops, just go straight under the door.”

“Are you sure I can do this? What if the magic doesn’t work?” Dr. Bell asked, sounding worried.

Jack said, “It’ll work. We’ve gotten pretty good at this.”

“Just do what we do,” Ruthie reassured her.

They didn’t have to wait long; the guard had gone to stand at the entrance, facing away, and no visitors were anywhere near them.

“Okay,” Jack said. Ruthie grabbed Dr. Bell’s hand just
as Jack placed the key in Ruthie’s other hand and held on tight. The magic worked beautifully. Quickly the three of them scooted under the door.

Caroline Bell laughed. “Incredible! That was great!” She stood up and looked around the immense corridor. Ruthie saw in Dr. Bell’s face something of the little girl who had first discovered the magic. “I remember! It’s coming back to me.”

Ruthie and Jack waited, letting her have a moment to let it all sink in before Ruthie said, “Let’s go to the ladder.” She started off into the corridor. Jack and Dr. Bell followed, and soon they saw the ladder, still hanging near room E7.

“You two climbed the whole way up?” Dr. Bell said.

“One of us could get big and lift you, if you’d rather not climb it,” Ruthie offered.

“No, I’m game.” She walked closer and admired Jack’s handiwork.

She was much more of a natural athlete than Dora, and wasn’t wearing high heels, so the climb went smoothly. Once she was standing on the ledge, Dr. Bell looked around. “Wow. Now I remember what this felt like.”

The silver box belonged in E10, a dining room from eighteenth-century England, which wasn’t too far along the ledge. Ruthie, Jack and Dr. Bell climbed through the framework and found the entrance to the room, a heavy wooden door with a big golden knob. Fortunately the door was open halfway. Dr. Bell looked in first.

“Yes, this is the room,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

“Sure,” Ruthie and Jack said.

The three of them walked into the room. The pale green walls were covered in delicate white carvings, and most of the furniture was highlighted with gold. A statue of the Greek goddess of the hunt, Diana, looked out from a wall niche.

“Do you remember where it goes?” Ruthie asked.

“Over there.” Dr. Bell stepped onto the finely embroidered rug and walked past the dining table to the far side of the room, where a three-tiered table stood. She placed the silver box on it. As she did so, they all heard the faraway but omnipresent tinkling, like an enveloping whisper; it was gone before they could exhale. Next they noticed the subtle but unmistakable change that took place: sounds of life could be heard from outside the large window. The view was of a walled courtyard, with a tall, wrought-iron gate in the center. Caroline Bell turned just in time to see a blackbird swoop down and land on the gate, chirping furiously. Her jaw dropped.

“Am I really seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

“Yes!” Ruthie said. “But we’d better get out of here.”

Outside the door, Dr. Bell still looked thunderstruck. “It can’t be … it’s not possible.”

Jack and Ruthie explained to her what they’d learned about certain objects—the really old ones—animating the rooms. They told her about hearing the voice of Duchess Christina of Milan, about Sophie and Thomas, and about Louisa and her family, and Phoebe from Charleston.

When they’d finished, Dr. Bell said, “I’d like you to take me to the room where you found my backpack. The room with the canopy bed.”

“That’s E17. Right this way,” Ruthie said, taking the lead.

When they arrived at E17, the door to the room was open as usual and the “daylight” from the tall window streamed in, illuminating the rich surfaces of the room. And there was the canopy bed, fit for royalty. Dr. Bell looked in and Ruthie could hear the catch in her breathing.

“Oh my,” she said. “I think I remember.… It was in the big cabinet, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ruthie answered. “I almost didn’t see it, it was so dark in there, but I was in the cabinet hiding from sight. When my eyes adjusted, there it was.”

“I used to go in there, thinking it was my own little world. That nothing bad could happen.” Dr. Bell choked up for a minute. “I’m going to walk in there for just a second, if you think it’s okay.”

“Go ahead. Just listen for voices in the gallery,” Jack said.

Dr. Bell tiptoed into the room. She touched the silk of the bed, then walked to the cabinet and looked in. Jack and Ruthie watched from the doorway.

When she came back to them, her eyes were glassy with tears. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure,” Ruthie answered.

“I’m remembering everything now: when I left my backpack with the photo albums in that cabinet, it wasn’t really an accident. I did it on purpose,” she said.

“Why?” Ruthie asked.

“I missed my mother so badly. I thought that if I couldn’t have her, I didn’t want anyone else to have her either. I knew my dad was planning an exhibition of those photos, and it felt like I would be sharing the only thing left of her. If I’d been a little older, I would have realized how much more I had to lose by hiding the album. But now I—my father and I—we have it back, thanks to you.”

She sighed deeply.

“Thank you both so much,” she said, smiling again. “I think we can leave now. That was good for me.”

“I’m glad,” Ruthie said. “But before we go, I want to check one more thing.”

J
ACK AND DR. BELL FOLLOWED
Ruthie along the ledge. “I’ve been thinking about Louisa and her family photo album,” she said. “I think we should take a look at it, to see if the pages have been filled in.”

“Good idea!” Jack said, already turning toward E27.

When they reached the room, Ruthie stepped through the framework and into the roof garden. She looked through the door into the room. The moment was right; she grabbed the album from where it rested on the coffee table and was out again.

“Let’s see it!” Jack said excitedly. They thumbed through the first half quickly until they found the photograph that had been the last one, of the Meyer family in front of 7, rue Le Tasse. There were Louisa, her parents and Jacob, all smiling for the camera.

“Turn the page, Jack.” Ruthie was too nervous to do it herself.

“Oh,” Jack said, seeing the next page.

The album was just as it had been before, with dozens of empty pages. There were no new photographs—and no proof that the Meyer family had left Paris! Ruthie put her hand to her mouth, like a dam to stop the emotion that was about to flood out of her.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Jack said. “This doesn’t mean anything. They couldn’t take much with them; they probably left this behind.”

“I suppose,” Ruthie said. “But I just wanted to know for sure.”

“Maybe you two could do some genealogical research and find out what happened to them,” Dr. Bell suggested.

Ruthie nodded, trying to cling to some hope. “We could also check the Thorne Room archives to see if Mrs. Thorne left any notes about this album.” She tried to sound optimistic, but worry remained in her voice.

They left the rooms by the usual route, going halfway under the door, waiting for the coast to be clear and then coming all the way out. Holding Jack’s hand, Ruthie dropped the key to the floor. In a moment the three of them stood in the alcove at full size as though nothing at all had happened.

At the front door to the museum, Ruthie felt her
phone vibrate in her pocket. The caller ID showed it was Mrs. McVittie.

“Hello?” Ruthie answered. “Sure, why? … Okay.” She hung up. “Hmmm. Mrs. McVittie wants us to come over, Jack. Right now. She wouldn’t say why.”

Jack shrugged. “Okay.”

“I have a question,” Dr. Bell began as they walked down the steps outside the museum. “If Dora Pommeroy had stolen the key, how did you shrink?”

Jack looked around to see if anyone would notice and then took the dimly glowing square out of his pocket. “With this. It works just like the key. We don’t know what it is, though.”

“May I?” Dr. Bell was about to lift the square from his palm but stopped. “Will it make me shrink?”

“Not out here,” Jack explained. “You have to be close to the rooms.”

She picked up the square. “Hmmm, warm, isn’t it?” She observed how it flashed in the sunlight. “I know what this is. It’s a slave token, a tag.”

“A what?” Ruthie asked.

“It’s a tag that slaves in a few places in the South were required to wear.
C-h-a-r
must be Charleston, South Carolina, and
v-a-n-t
is probably
servant
. The numbers are most likely the slave’s number and the year the tag was made. I think they were worn around the neck.”

“Whoa!” Jack exclaimed.

“Maybe that’s why we met Phoebe! I bet this belonged to her!” Ruthie declared.

“They’re highly collectible. Some families who are descended from slaves have them, often kept in family Bibles through the generations. You don’t see them very often. If you need any help researching the tag, I know some people.” Dr. Bell looked at the tag some more before handing it back to Jack. Then she hugged them both and said goodbye. “And thanks again for today. It was … amazing.” She hailed a cab and hopped in.

They stood on the sidewalk looking at the metal square—the slave tag. In spite of its rough appearance, Ruthie and Jack had assumed that it must be something of importance to have been imbued with the magic. The key had come from a young woman of the nobility, a duchess; this tag had come from someone on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. So how could a slave have acquired this power? And why?

“I wonder how it ended up in the beaded bag,” Ruthie said.

Jack shook his head. “Just when we get a bunch of puzzles solved, there’s something else to figure out!”

Mrs. McVittie opened the door to her apartment and ushered them in. “Darlings, look! This was in yesterday’s mail. I only just opened it.”

She handed them a sheet of paper with the emblem of
the U.S. Postal Service on the letterhead. It was a letter of several paragraphs, but the most important part said:

“What letter?” Ruthie asked, thoroughly perplexed. Mrs. McVittie handed an envelope to her.

It was yellowed with age, addressed in perfect script: