The Jewels of Sofia Tate (14 page)

“Yeah. Bats don't bother me.”

Garnet hugged her shoulders. She was beginning to feel creepy all over again. First the note, then the intruder, now the bats again. “What if that BMW guy comes back?”

Dan let out a deep sigh. “Look, what do you want me to do? You wanted me to help you look for those jewels and I'm trying to do that. So either we stop looking, or you can stay down here and wait. Or you can come up with me. I'll let you hold my hand, if you want.”

“I don't need to hold your hand,” Garnet retorted. The truth was she didn't know what she wanted to do. Of course, she wanted to continue with the search, but the evening's events had left her jittery. And Dan really was only trying to help. “Okay,” she said, “I'll follow you upstairs, but I won't go into the attic.”

Dan shrugged. “Whatever.”

They climbed the stairs and reached the room that led to the attic. Dan unlatched the door.

“I'll wait here,” Garnet said. “Close the door behind you.”

With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, Dan closed the door, but a moment later, it swung back open.

“What? What happened?” Garnet asked.

“Nothing. It's too dark and the light doesn't work. I need a flashlight.”

Garnet followed Dan downstairs to the kitchen where they searched the cupboards and drawers.

“Got one,” Dan said, pulling a flashlight from the drawer. He pressed the switch and aimed at the wall. “It works. Now, come on, scaredy-cat. Let's go.”

Scaredy-cat. Curiosity killed the cat.
Garnet couldn't deny it, that note was gnawing at her. She hadn't told Dan about it and hadn't decided yet if she would. She didn't want him to abandon the search.

“If I'm a cat, you'd better watch out,” Garnet said as they climbed back up the stairs. “I've seen what cats are capable of around here.”

Dan chuckled. “Yeah, but I'm not a mouse.”

Maybe he wouldn't be scared off so easily.

He pushed open the creaky door and aimed the flashlight up the dark staircase.

“Are you sure you won't come with me?”

Garnet shook her head.

“It's just bats,” Dan said. “They're in the bell tower at church all the time. They won't hurt you.”

“Unless they have rabies or pull your hair.”

“They don't have rabies and they won't pull your hair,” Dan insisted. “Come on. You'll be fine. I'll be with you.”

“You just don't want to be up there by yourself, do you?”

“No, that's not it. I just want to prove to you that they won't hurt you.” Was he trying to convince himself? “Come on,” Dan said again, holding out his hand.

Garnet looked at it. She didn't want to go up again. But maybe if he was with her ...

“Oh, all right,” she said, taking it. “But only because
you
need someone to hold
your
hand. If I see even so much as one bat, Dan, I'm out of there.”

“Okay.” He trained the light on the steep stairs before them. His hand was sweaty, she noticed, and as they climbed the stairs the air was becoming hotter. Garnet tried to ignore that her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it drumming in her ears. She didn't know if was the result of her fear of the bats or the fact that she was holding Dan's hand.

When they reached the top of the stairs, he waved the light around the room and checked for any movement, paying special attention to the corners. All was still. The dusk lingered outside the window, and soon it would be completely dark. Garnet covered her hair with her free hand in an attempt to shield it, just in case.

“Look at all the stuff up here,” Dan remarked.

“I know. Some of it's pretty good, too. I went through a few of the boxes before. Antique dealers
would love it. Look at this.” Garnet led him to the music box. She let go of his hand and wound the crank.

“Cool,” Dan said when the music started. They left it playing while they carefully picked their way, hand in hand, around boxes and household items in search of a mirror. But it wasn't long before Garnet felt the sensation of something soft brush against her cheek.

“Oh, no! They're back!” she shrieked. Garnet let go of Dan's hand and flicked the backs of her hands against her face. “That's it! I'm out of here!” She turned to flee, but Dan grabbed her arm. He took the flashlight and directed the light toward her face.

“It's a cobweb. A big dusty cobweb caught in your hair,” he said, brushing it away.

“Oh, Dan, I just can't do it. Let's come back tomorrow. If there's a mirror in here, it'll still be there when it's light and the bats have gone to bed.”

He sighed. “All right.” He flashed the light around the room one last time. “It's just too bad we've got nothing else to go on.”

Garnet bit her lip. The whole idea to look for the jewels had been hers and now she was behaving like such a baby. “Hey, I know you're only trying to help. It's just that I'm really kind of creeped-out tonight.”

Dan shrugged. “It's okay. Let's go.”

The music box stopped playing. He held the light
in front of them, and reached for Garnet's hand again. As he tried to step around the wooden rocking cradle, he stumbled and something crunched under his shoe. He let go of Garnet and aimed the flashlight at the floor. A rectangular package wrapped in newspaper lay on the floor.

“I think I was hiding behind that before. It might have fallen when I ran out.”

Dan bent down to lean it against a box. “Hmm. The newspaper's from May 1942.”

“Really? I wonder what's inside? You don't suppose ...?” Garnet stopped. It was too much to hope for.

“Should I bring it downstairs?”

“Yes.”

Dan handed Garnet the flashlight and he lifted the awkward package. Pieces slid and jingled inside as he carried it down the stairs. In the kitchen, Dan carefully laid the package on the table and untied the string. When he pulled away the brittle newspaper, Garnet gasped.

Between two sheets of cardboard, cut from an old box, were pieces of glass, cracked and broken, fallen out of a gold, ornamental frame. The silver coating behind the glass was tarnished.

“It's the mirror,” Garnet whispered. “And now it's smashed to bits.”

“It might not be as bad as it looks,” Dan said in an attempt to console her. “We can try putting some of it back together like a puzzle.” He scrutinized the larger pieces, then picked up some of the smaller ones as he tried to match the shapes.

Garnet swallowed hard. She picked up a piece of glass and set it back down again. This was bad, anyone could see that. If a clue had ever been scratched into the glass, how would they ever find it now? It was destroyed forever.

With a finger, she traced the frame, which had once held the mirror, and now only supported a thin board. The inner edge of the frame had a rough texture, surrounded by layered golden leaves, like those of a vine, so realistic that even the veins were engraved into them. Her finger stopped at one of the leaves. Was it her imagination or was something scratched onto it in a swirled script to camouflage it into the pattern?

“What is it?” Dan asked.

“Does this look unusual to you?” Garnet asked, pointing.

He leaned closer, then looked up. “It sort of looks like E-C-C-L 3.1'— Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1.”

Garnet wasted no time. She sprang from her chair and hurried to the library. Dan was only a step behind her. While Garnet reached for Elizabeth's Bible on the desk, Dan picked up his.

“How do you know all the names of those books, anyway?” Garnet asked as she scanned the index to find the page number for Ecclesiastes.

“I had to memorize them all a few years ago in confirmation class. And don't forget, my grandfather's a pastor. Something must have rubbed off.”

“Well, maybe I should go to church sometime so I can learn this stuff,” Garnet said, rolling her eyes. “It might help me in this search.”

“Maybe you should. How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Garnet gave a little snigger. “Yeah, right. I wasn't serious.”

“I am,” Dan said, looking up from his Bible. “Why don't you come with me?”

“I don't think it's really my thing.”

“So? You said it might help you with the search. What have you got to lose?”

Sleep. Sweet Sunday sleep. Garnet shrugged. “I'll think about it.”

“Great. I'll pick you up at nine-thirty.”

Garnet frowned and Dan chuckled.

“So, what does yours say?” he said.

“Just a minute, I'm still looking.” She fumbled through the pages. “Here it is: 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.'” She looked up. “What about yours?”

“‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.'”

Garnet thought for a moment. “They're nearly the same. They're both about time.”

Dan scratched his head. “Time. How about a clock? Are we getting too smart for this, or what?” he said dryly.

Garnet laughed. “We're not that smart or we'd know which one, wouldn't we? There are a few of them around, you know.”

Dan looked over at the mantel. “Why don't we start with that one?” He reached for the clock and placed it on the desk.

A hinged glass cover protected the face, which had been painstakingly hand-painted with a tree depicting each season of the year, for each quarter hour. A winter scene covered the first quarter, from the twelve to the three, then spring from the three to the six, summer from the six to the nine, and autumn from nine to twelve. The numbers themselves were painted in black Roman numerals.

“What's this for?” Dan asked, pulling a key from a hole in the side of the clock.

“To wind it. Clocks used to be wound with keys before electricity and batteries,” Garnet explained. “See these holes over the four and the eight on the face of the clock? You're supposed to use the key to turn these
knobs inside the holes. One knob's to keep the time and the other one's to make the clock chime. I've seen these in antique shops. Only this key doesn't look right,” she said, frowning as she held it up. “This looks like a key to open something.”

Dan opened the hinged glass door. The short hand of the clock was stopped just after the three and the long hand at the seven. He touched the hands and tried to move them. “Hey, these hands are stuck.”

Garnet reached over and gave them a nudge herself but found the same. “You're right. They don't move. That's weird.”

They examined the clock further to check for any markings or anything else unusual about it, but found nothing. “Maybe this really is just a broken clock,” Garnet said. “Too bad, because it does go with that season theme.”

Dan nodded. “Let's look at another one.”

He set the clock back on the mantelpiece and they walked down the hall to the front entrance. The grandfather clock chimed once as Garnet turned the light on. The numbers on the face of this clock were also black Roman numerals, but were painted inside a white outer circle with a golden inner circle in the centre. The small black hand, shaped like a delicate ornamental heart, pointed between the ten and eleven, while the
larger hand pointed to the six. Garnet glanced at her own watch. It said twenty minutes after nine.

“Is that really the time?” she asked, pointing to the clock.

Dan looked down at his watch. “Yeah. I've got ten-thirty.”

“My watch is slow. I didn't realize it was this late.”

Dan opened the door of the wooden cabinet. Inside were chains that had to be pulled to wind the clock and a pendulum that swung rhythmically back and forth. They searched both the inside and outside of the cabinet, knocking for hidden compartments and again looking for markings, or anything else unusual.

“No luck with this one, either,” he said after a while and closed the cabinet.

“There's only one more clock I can think of,” Garnet said. “The ones in the kitchen and Elizabeth's bedroom are newer electric ones.”

She opened the French doors to the living room. In the centre of the mantelpiece stood the unusually shaped porcelain clock that was really more a sculpture with its moulded flowers adorning the sides, and flowers painted in pinks and greens on the front of it. The face of this clock had a raised inner circle with blue Arabic numerals surrounded by paler outer circles. The golden hands indicated the time: twenty minutes to eleven.

Dan pulled the key out of the side of the clock. “This key looks different.”

“Yeah, that's the kind for winding clocks.”

“How often do you have to wind them, anyway?”

Garnet shrugged. “I don't know.”

They carefully inspected this clock as well, but after several minutes, found nothing unusual about it, either.

“I think we're out of luck, Sherlock,” Dan said.

Garnet let out a disappointed sigh. “I thought we were on the right track. Unless we missed something. Or there's another clock we don't know about.”

“Or Ecclesiastes isn't a clue. Maybe those aren't really markings. Maybe they're just part of the leaf pattern.”

He set the clock back on the mantelpiece. And that was when Garnet noticed it: the empty space on the right side of the mantel.

“Where's the angel?” she asked.

“The angel? I don't know.” Dan furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“Because it's gone! The angel's gone!” she exclaimed. Garnet looked around the room.

“Are you sure? Maybe you moved it.”

But Garnet shook her head. “I looked at it before when I was waiting for you, but I put it back.”

“Are you saying someone took it?”

“Well, obviously it didn't fly away!”

Their eyes met.

“There's only one person who could have taken it,” Garnet said. “That faceless BMW person. We have to find out who it is and what they know.”