The Book of Nonsense (11 page)

“Wait, but not everyone forgot the language,” Dex assumed. “What about you and our mom?”

“Several thousand years ago,” Ruby said, “the thirty-six most intelligent thirteenyear-old children in the world were identified and invited to a secret academy. Your mother and I were among these children.”

“The most intelligent children in the whole
world
?” Dex asked. “How did they manage that?”

“It was a mysterious processs,” Ruby admitted. “I can only tell you that in my case, our teacher asked me to solve a difficult riddle. When I succeeded, he ruffled my hair and said I'd been selected. Our parents were told we'd be trained to become peacemakers among the nations. What they weren't told was that we'd become so by mastering the First Tongue. When our families departed, our teacher told us the truth: he'd discovered the language in an old book, but was too old and weak to make use of it. He'd decided to recruit and train us so that together we could bring, in his words, Heaven to Earth.

“But it was no easy task. Our teacher never gave voice to the words himself, but rather left us to puzzle each one out for ourselves. It took nearly a year for us to master the very first word, but it was critical, for it enabled us to prolong our lives. If it took us ten thousand years to accomplish our task, our teacher was willing to wait.”

“You mean,” Daphna gasped, “a word for
immortality
?”

Ruby shook her head again. “No,” she said. “That is the one word of power not in the book. Our word prolonged our lives prodigiously, but as you can see, time, even for us, is limited.”

“Rash was one of the kids, too!” Dexter declared.

“Indeed,” Ruby confirmed. “During our many years of study, he plotted a rebellion. He secretly won over all but nine of us—the Nine we were later called. His plan was to use the First Tongue to enslave the world. And now I can only assume he had the idea of training you—the surely talented children of one of us—to do it for him all these lifetimes later.”

This struck the twins hard. Phrases like “enslave the world,” were only for stories. They both had the same feeling just then—that they'd gotten themselves into something way over their heads.

“But you won. The Nine won, right?” Daphna knew it had to be that way.

“Indeed,” Ruby confirmed. “We prevailed in what was known as the War of Words. All of Asterius' co-conspirators were crushed, all but Asterius himself because he was the most skillful among us. We did, however, manage to seal him in a stone cell after defeating him. Afterward, the Nine formed a Council because we had some terrible thinking to do. We'd lost so much, you see. Our teacher's dream was destroyed.”

“What happened to him?” Dex asked.

“It is my personal belief that Asterius killed him because he disappeared the day the War began—and later we learned that Asterius had his book. We never heard from him again.”

“How did Rash get away?” asked Daphna.

“After much deliberation, the Council reached a difficult decision,” Ruby explained. “This was that the First Tongue was best forgotten. We brought Asterius before us and told him we would use a word of Forgetting to wipe the words of power from our memories and then set him free. He agreed, and so we immediately began the ceremony on the misty mountaintop where we met.”

“He was lying,” Dex predicted.

“Yes. But fortunately one among us found him out. Her name was Sophia Logos. You see, as the word of Forgetting was taking effect, she used a word of Insight still within her mind's eye to inspect Asterius' heart. She was nearly as skillful as he. Sophia perceived his final scheme, then acted swiftly and with cunning. As the final few words of power drifted from us all, she grasped one last word and used it the best way she could. It was a word of Changing, and she directed it at the book she realized was hidden in the folds of Asterius' robe.”

“He was going to try to learn the First Tongue again!” Daphna shouted. “And then he'd be the only one—”

Ruby nodded.

“What happened when he realized what Sophia did?” Dexter asked.

“When the Forgetting was complete,” said Ruby, “Asterius found his book contained pages that changed—the words on the pages, changing from this to that, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but forever changing.”

Now Daphna leapt to her feet, nearly spilling her tea. “That's why he made me keep reading the first page, to see if anything changed! That's why he got so excited when I misread a word! But—
they are
! Some of the words
are
moving! I thought I was just carsick!” Daphna paused a moment, thinking. “But—my dad, when he brought the book to Rash—wouldn't he have mentioned it if the words were actually moving?”

Ruby did not look encouraged. “It is likely,” she said, “that at most times, it looks like an ordinary, if very strange, book.”

“How did it get lost?” Dexter asked.

“When Asterius realized it might take centuries for the First Tongue to reappear on its pages,” Ruby explained, “he went into a rage. First, he dashed the book to the ground. Then he attempted to pull it to pieces, and finally hurled it off the cliff. The book fell many hundreds of feet into a river dotted with boats. It was impossible to see whether it landed in the water or on some craft that took it to places unknown, though it soon became obvious that the latter is what occurred.”

“How did you know?” Daphna asked, sitting back down.

“We knew the book was not destroyed because, as time passed, we began to notice that certain common folk throughout the world were developing modest powers. The book was making its way here and there, revealing at times some lesser words of power, but no instructions on how to pronounce them of course. People tried to use them to change base metals to gold, or tell the future from the stars. Some fashioned themselves into magicians and performed tricks for money; others became master thieves. Some were noble enough to cure the sick.

“But once in a while, a commoner found a truly dangerous word and used it to gain extraordinary power over their fellow men, setting themselves up as great leaders and putting their people's collective energies toward evil ends. Thankfully, this was rare, and the words eventually failed the tyrants.

“Consequently, the Council agreed that keeping an eye on Asterius was less important than finding that book. After all, he no longer knew the language any better than we did. I agreed to continue monitoring him alone, and the rest of the Council split up to track news of magical events around the world.

“Since then, we've lost contact with one another. I fear all the other Councilors have perished, for as I've said, none of us is immortal. Children,” Ruby said, “we must get that book before it's too late. It seems I represent the Council alone. I am counting on you both, and I do not exaggerate when I say the fate of the world hangs in the balance.”

Simultaneously, the twins swallowed lumps in their throats. They remained silent a moment before a question occurred to Dexter.

“Ruby,” he said softly, “our Mom—you said you knew her by another name. What was it?”

“Why, haven't you guessed?” Ruby asked, looking surprised but smiling. “It was Sophia Logos of course.”

Brother and sister sat silently, attempting to take in this latest bombshell.

Finally, Daphna asked, “When Rash read that article, about our mom, why did he think it was a Councilor who died?“

“Because of where it happened,” Ruby answered. “That remote area in Turkey—those caves; they were very near where we were trained. But he couldn't have known it was your mother. She wasn't using her real name, and even a photo wouldn't have mattered. Living this long changes you profoundly. Unless they kept in touch, none of the Councilors would recognize each other after so—”

Ruby stopped short. The fire alarm was suddenly blaring in the hall. The twins stood up, frightened.

“Probably nothing,” Ruby said, “but we better go.” She rose and led the twins out of her room and toward the emergency stairwell directly across the hall. Daphna made a mad dash for it, hoping to avoid an encounter with the Seven Dwarves. It was a good thing, too, because out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Dwyfan and Mrs. Tapi puzzling over the fire alarm box in front of the lounge. They seemed baffled, as if it were a piece of technology they'd never encountered before.

On the stairs, Daphna, Dex and Ruby ran into a group of eight rehab patients getting in some exercise. Each had some sort of wrap or sling or brace on one limb or another, and they were all clutching the railings, perspiring heavily. With the alarm, everyone was trying to reverse course all at once, so it was impossible to get around them. Further confusion ensued when, moments later, dozens more old people entered the stairs, both behind and in front.

It took a while for a slow moving mass to begin heading for the lobby, but no one seemed particularly worried, which Daphna thought was typical. In fact, the only thing she could hear was grumbling about how much everyone was being put out. When the crowd finally reached the first floor, a wedge formed separating Dexter, Daphna and Ruby. Daphna tried to push her way forward, but it was impossible.

“Where's the fire, young lady?!” someone demanded.

Daphna huffed, but didn't push any further. She had to inch her way into the lobby, where there was near pandemonium as nurses and visitors scrambled to evacuate the rehabilitation patients, many of whom were in wheelchairs or on crutches.

“False Alarm! False Alarm!” someone was shouting. It was Evelyn Idun. “We can all go back to our rooms in a few minutes!” she called. No one seemed to be paying her any mind.

After a short but panicked search, Daphna found Dex, and they forged a circuitous course through the grousing crowd. They looked for Ruby, desperate for more information, but with no luck.

A hand grabbed Daphna by the shoulder. “Daphna, honey!” It was Evelyn, appearing out of nowhere. “Oh, sweetie!” she said, “I'm so glad I caught you. A boy came here,
really
big, with dark glasses and an awfully pale face. He said he had to find you right away. He said there was some kind of emergency. He looked dreadfully upset. Since I never saw you come back down, I sent him up to the lounge, but I guess he missed you.”

Daphna didn't waste a second replying. Talking more to Ruby would have to wait. She and Dex frantically wove their way outside, barely managing to avoid trampling a little old lady and her walker along the way.

Once outside, they sprinted off without looking back.

Dex, running ahead of his sister, reached home first. He flew down the driveway and rounded behind the house, but he pulled up at the back door. Loud voices were audible from the kitchen: his father and Latty, back from the hospital, were arguing strenuously.

Moments later, Daphna came tearing toward him. Dex intercepted her and led her into the garage.

“What's going on? Dad's home!” Daphna said, pointing at the car in the driveway.

“I can see that,” Dex said tersely. “Let's wait and see what's going on.”

Daphna nodded. She'd lost her head for a moment. When she finally caught her breath, she said, “I guess Emmet finally figured out we stole the ledger.”

Dex nodded. “But how would he know where you were?”

“Rash I suppose. Dad told him I read to old folks at the local home.”

“Emmet probably pulled the alarm so he could grab us without making a scene.”

“Where was he then?” Daphna asked. “Dex, he probably wants to kill us. He seems as obsessed with killing someone as Rash is about this book.” Then something occurred to her. “He said Rash doesn't hypnotize him, but maybe he just doesn't know it. Maybe we can snap him out of it!”

Dex couldn't process this. All he could say was, “
Mom!
”

Daphna didn't reply, but the look of amazement on her face was enough to show her brother the incredible news was striking her again as well. The pair paused for a moment, finally able to reflect on what they'd learned from Ruby. Their very own mother had been on the Council, and she was the one who'd foiled Rash's plans. She'd been thousands of years old! It was still too much to comprehend, so Dex and Daphna fell into a long, thoughtful silence.

After a minute, Dex heard himself say, “About Wren and Teal, I—”

Daphna blinked at her brother, instantly pale. She couldn't handle this right now. When did Dexter take it upon himself to ruin her life? It was clear she was the real loser in the family, and now he was going to lord it over her, probably forever.

“I made that up,” Dex admitted. “I didn't really see them in the park.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry. I was just being a jerk. I never saw either one of them.”

Daphna's ears went red. “But—but—” She searched her brother's eyes but couldn't detect even a trace of insincerity. “Thanks,” she whispered.

Dex had no idea why he'd decided to admit this just then, or what to say next, but it didn't matter because at that moment the back door of the house burst open. Milton was struggling to get outside with Latty trying to restrain him. The twins tiptoed to the garage door.

“Get back to bed!” Latty demanded. “You heard what the doctor said. You're worn out! And the kids are missing! It's their birthday, Milton! We need to have a proper party!”

“Unhand me, woman!” Milton ordered, trying to scrape Latty off like a stubborn burr. At the same time, he was trying to get into an overcoat. It was drizzling again.

“You're not even dressed!” Latty shouted. She was right. Milton was in his flannel pajamas.

“I am going to get that book!” Milton wailed, evidently unconcerned with his choice of outfit. “Quartich thinks he's got a copy. Do you understand me?!”