Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle (24 page)

Gabriel was unsure if Aunt Jaz knew something she wasn't telling him, or if she was just being hopeful.

Gabriel got to school in the middle of math class. Abby could tell that he had important news, but she had to wait until they could talk in a secluded corner of the library during study hall.

When he explained, she was most disappointed to have missed the adventure. “Oh, I wish you had let me come,” she whispered. “Who knew owls love puns? I wonder if that goes for other birds. I bet woodpeckers prefer knock-knock jokes. Maybe larks like limericks and puffins prefer palindromes!”

“Yeah, Abby, but it's gone.”

“Well, the owls said it was disobedient and ruthless. Maybe it will try to escape from Septimus and come back to you.”

“One thing the owls said was really confusing,” said Gabriel.

“What?”

“They said that they have the same enemy as us.”

“Hmm. Valravens, maybe?” said Abby. “Or Corax. Oh! Remember when we saw him talking to your father in that weird postcard? He said,
‘Your warm, sunlit world is my next domain, and I need the torc to rule it.'
The owls
must
have been talking about him.”

“Scary,” said Gabriel. “Corax has to be stopped, which
means we have to get my dad out of that prison in Aviopolis as soon as we can.…”

Abby's eyes shined when Gabriel said
we.

“The question,” Gabriel continued, “is how to get there?”

Rubbing her glasses furiously with the hem of her skirt, Abby gasped. “I've got it!” she said. “Ask the writing desk!”

On Saturday, with Trudy out shopping, Gabriel, Abby, and Pamela lured the writing desk into Pamela's bedroom with another jig. Pamela played three measures on her violin and the desk crept timidly up the staircase wearing a beret and a woolen vest. Immediately it jumped into a vigorous step dance. After the third slip jig, it collapsed in exhaustion and offered its keyhole without a fuss.

“How can I get to the place where my father is prisoner?” asked Gabriel.

Another postcard appeared in the middle compartment. On it was a photograph of a small marble building standing among gravestones.

“What's that?”

Abby's smile faded. “It looks like a mausoleum.”

“What's a mausoleum?” asked Pamela.

“A monument with coffins of all the members of a family inside. Cemeteries have lots of them.”

An awful thought struck Gabriel. “Is the desk telling us my father's dead?”

The three were silent. Gabriel sat down, staring grimly at the postcard.

After a moment, Pamela spoke. “No way. I don't believe it for a minute. That can't be what it means.”

“Why not?”

Abby's eyes lit up. “Because you asked
how
to get to the place where he was being kept prisoner. That's an entirely different question.”

“A mausoleum,” said Gabriel, “that leads to Aviopolis?”

Somes Grindle

G
abriel Finley wasn't scared of him anymore, and this bothered Somes Grindle.

When he poked Gabriel from behind, Gabriel didn't tremble. When he asked for homework answers, Gabriel ignored him. Something had changed, something secret and important.

Somes felt envious of Gabriel these days and wished he knew Gabriel's secret because he wished for more courage himself. He was sick of being picked on by his father.

Mr. Grindle worked for the Quinn Bakery, whose motto was
Love in a Loaf
, with a picture of a big red heart on a loaf of bread. It was on the T-shirt he wore each night at the bakery. Somes didn't understand how his father could have a furious temper wearing such a motto. His father's best friend, Arturo, worked in the bakery with him; Arturo was as friendly and calm as anyone could be.
Love in a Loaf
made sense on Arturo's shirt.

Arturo once told Somes that his father was a much happier man when he was married, but that was a long time ago.
Somes couldn't remember his mother. She had married again and had little children of her own somewhere in Florida.

When Somes stepped out of school, he saw the bakery van and decided to take a long walk instead of going home.

He rambled south for ten blocks, then east along the freeway embankment, then up the ramp to the cemetery, his hideaway.

He studied the names on the tombstones along the empty paths and wondered about the people who had lived a hundred years ago. He liked the statues of angels, the monuments, and the mausoleums. They seemed such happy little places with their stained-glass windows and tidy interiors. One mausoleum had letters carved on the outside that read
ELKIN
, and inside were the names of a family:
DAVID, JUDY, JANE
, and
JEFFREY
. He imagined that if things got really bad, he could always hide out with the Elkins for company. He wasn't scared of tombs. He didn't believe in ghosts. When you live with someone who shouts and gets angry about nothing at all, a mausoleum seems the most peaceful place in the world.

By the time Somes arrived home that evening, he was tired and hungry. The house was dark and quiet. In the kitchen he saw a brown bag with the
Love in a Loaf
motto and started to open it.

“Where have you been?” His father was waiting in the darkness.

“Just walking,” Somes replied.

“What about your homework?”

“I'll do it now. First I need something to eat.”

“Get cracking,” said his father. “If you wanted to eat, you should have come home in time for dinner.”

Somes looked at him—there was stubble on his cheeks and a sneer on his face.

“Dad, I'm starving,” he said.

His father raised his voice. “You should have come home on time!”

Somes looked at the bag again. That motto—
Love in a Loaf
—made him feel indignant. The man worked in a bakery; he brought bread home every day—the warmest, most delicious loaves. It seemed cruel not to let him eat.

In the next moment Somes did something he had never done before.

He grabbed the bag and ran out of the house. He heard his father shout behind him, but he kept running. Clutching the loaf against his chest, he ran until all he could hear was his heart beating, his breath whistling high and shrill. At the cemetery fence, he threw the bread over and clambered after it, then sprinted straight to the mausoleum marked
ELKIN
. When he had closed the door behind him, he sat on the marble floor, ripped off hunks of bread, and gobbled them down.

It must have been around midnight when Somes woke up. A great scarlet moon hung in the sky; he was peering
through the red stained glass of the mausoleum door. He had been woken by a conversation.

“Is it safe to talk?” said a raspy voice.

“Of course it's safe. The only humans here are dead humans!” replied another.

“We must be on the lookout for Septimus Geiger, the sparrows say, for he has the torc!” said a stern voice.

“If any of you see him, pluck out his eyes.”

“If you can't pluck out his eyes, bite off his fingers.”

“Yes, but if he has the torc,” replied the stern one, “he could cast any of us into oblivion.”

A sharp voice interrupted: “Corax will reward any one of us that captures the necklace!”

Somes scrambled up and pressed his forehead to the glass, trying to make out who was talking, but there wasn't a person to be seen. All he could see was a tree with a group of tattered black birds perched on one bare branch.

“One thing is clear—when Corax claims the torc, he'll rise from Aviopolis to rule the skies.”

“Yes,” sighed another. “It won't be long now.”

The birds flew off and the conversation stopped.

Birds talking?
Somes wondered.
I must be dreaming.

He turned the handle of the door, which made a rough, grating noise. It was colder outside, and his teeth began to chatter.

With the full moon shining above, he noticed three mausoleums standing in a dignified row—each had two pillars in
front and bronze gates. The family names were carved into the marble.
WHEELER, THORPE
, and
FINLEY
.

Finley?
Somes wondered if Gabriel's family owned the mausoleum. He approached it and noticed something peculiar: a procession of ravens had been engraved beneath the Finley name.

Somes peered through the circular hole in the bronze mausoleum gate: the little building was empty. There were no names on the walls, no signs of anyone buried there. Where there should have been a floor, there was a set of steps that descended into darkness.

The Disobedient Torc

G
abriel kept the staff in a corner of his bedroom. It looked like any broom handle—a very old, weathered, and slightly warped one. Sometimes he would wrap his hand around it, just to remind himself that his last adventure hadn't been a dream. If he kept his grip firm for a minute or two, a wonderfully reassuring warmth would emanate from the wood, and his doubts would disappear. This was how he managed to get through the next few weeks as he planned what to do. He had asked Aunt Jaz about mausoleums, but she told him that most were the size of a small room and led nowhere.