Gallagher Girls 5 - Out of Sight, Out of Time (20 page)

W
hen an operative (not to mention teacher) like Joe Solomon tells you to do something, you do it. Even if it goes against doctor’s orders. Even if it doesn’t really make any sense. Even if you can’t find a wheelchair and he’s still in his flannel PJs.

When Joe Solomon grips your hand and says, “Professor Buckingham. Take me to her. Now,” you go.

I knew that Dr. Fibs had developed some new technology that would keep Mr. Solomon’s muscles from atrophying during his long sleep, but he’d been in that bed for months, and it was all I could do to help him start down the hall and into one of the passageways that would keep us hidden from the other students. I tried to tell him that I could go get help, but Joe Solomon was one of the best operatives in the world. He wasn’t going to be delayed one second more, so he leaned against me and we made our way downstairs.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Solomon. Mom’s probably in her office. We can—”

“Not your mom. Patricia,” he said, breathing hard.

“Professor Buckingham?” I asked. It didn’t make any sense, but Mr. Solomon just nodded and I kept walking.

It was harder than it should have been to feel Joe Solomon leaning against me. It wasn’t the weight. It was that the strongest man I knew seemed helpless. And I didn’t like it at all, but I kept going, climbing down stairs and finally into the main hallway on the second floor. I peeked out to make sure it was empty, then helped Mr. Solomon out behind me. We were almost there when—

“Cameron Morgan!” I heard Buckingham exclaim from behind us. “What is the meaning of this?” She looked around and pulled us into a quiet alcove, lest any nosy eighth graders passed by and saw me walking the halls with Joe Solomon’s ghost.

“Now, you wait here,” she ordered. “I will get some help and we will get you back to your room.”

“The necklace, Cammie. Show her the necklace.”

I’m not exactly proud of it, but I actually worried that Mr. Solomon might be seeing things, thinking things—that maybe I had lost my memory and he had lost his mind. But I reached up and found the chain that hung around my neck just the same. I ran my hands along it until I found the small medallion.

“Take that off,” Buckingham ordered, so I gave it to her. She stepped out of the shadows and held the small charm against the light.

“Joe, is that…” she started.

“I think so, Patricia. I think…” But then he faltered and stumbled into my arms. “I need to sit down.”

Five minutes later, we were all settled into Mom’s office with my roommates and Zach and Abby, and Mom was saying, “What is it?”

“Your necklace, Cammie,” Buckingham said. “Show it to them.”

“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” I said, taking it off again and holding it forward. “It’s nothing, Mr. Solomon. Tell him, Mom,” I said, looking at her. “I was in Rome last summer, and I bought a bunch of jewelry for everyone. Souvenirs and stuff.”

“Look at it, Cammie,” Mr. Solomon said, and I couldn’t help myself: I smiled because he sounded…like Mr. Solomon. I could tell Bex had heard it too.

“Cammie,” Mr. Solomon warned, and I did as I was told.

There was a small silver charm on a matching chain. The charm looked like a shield divided into two, with a large tree covering the center, its branches touching both sides. “What do you see, Ms. Morgan?” my CoveOps teacher asked.

“It’s a seal of some kind. Probably something to do with Rome—that’s where I bought it and—”

“No one bought that necklace, Cameron,” Buckingham told me.

“Yes, I did,” I countered.

Mr. Solomon cocked his head. “I thought you didn’t remember?”

“Well, technically, I don’t. But we know I got a bunch of jewelry at the street fair in Rome.”

“You got it in Rome, I’m sure. But you didn’t buy it.” He straightened on the couch. “I strongly suspect you retrieved that necklace from your father’s safety deposit box,” Mr. Solomon said, and suddenly it didn’t feel like a five-dollar trinket I’d picked up at the fair. It felt priceless. And that was before my teacher talked on.

“What do you see when you look at it?” he asked.

“I don’t remember, Mr. Solomon. I’ve tried, I swear. I just don’t—”

“Not what do you
remember
. What do you
see
?”

“It’s a crest,” I said. “It kind of reminds me of the Gallagher Academy seal but without the sword and stuff. I thought that was why I bought it.”

“It’s not
like
the Gallagher
Academy
seal, dear,” Buckingham said. “It
is
the Gallagher
family
seal.”

My mom was shaking her head. “I didn’t know. I’ve never seen that.” She turned to her sister. “Abby?”

“Me either,” Abby said. “How is that possible?”

“Oh, very few people alive today would recognize it,” Buckingham told them. “Gillian took great pains to remove all traces of her family seal when she inherited the mansion. I’m not surprised you didn’t know what that emblem was.”

Everyone was slowly creeping closer to me. I felt them closing in as the crest lay in the palm of my outstretched hand.

“Why did Matthew have it, Joe?” Abby asked.

Mr. Solomon laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t know he did. Matt was…stubborn.”

Mom sat at her desk, not moving. I didn’t want to look at her, but her presence was like a fire burning at the corner of my eye.

“There was a lot he didn’t tell me. He knew I’d been a part of the Circle, and he knew I was too emotionally involved.” Mr. Solomon glanced, almost involuntarily, at Zach. “I think he was afraid of what I’d do if I found out how close he was getting.”

“How close was he?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Mr. Solomon shook his head. “But if he was researching Gilly’s family”—he pointed to the necklace—“and that makes me think he probably was, then it’s possible he was
very, very
close.”

Mr. Solomon rubbed his hands on his legs, warming them against the soft flannel. “Patricia,” he said, turning to Buckingham, “tell them.”

She didn’t hesitate or question; she just sat up straighter and said, “What I’m about to tell you may not be true. A lot of people think it’s more fairy tale than anything.”

“
I
thought it was a fairy tale,” Mr. Solomon added. “Almost everyone in the Circle did.”

“Yes,” Buckingham went on. “You see, to understand, you must first know that before there was the Circle, there was just Ioseph Cavan. But he was a clever man, and he surrounded himself with a trusted band of confidants and co-conspirators. And Gillian Gallagher knew that as long as those friends remained alive and loyal, then the threat Cavan posed could live on.”

Professor Buckingham gave a wry smile. “So she went to work. She wanted to identify the members of the Circle—the families that Cavan left behind. The families that rule over the Circle even today.”

“So she…what? Made a list?” Macey asked.

Mr. Solomon shrugged. “This is where people disagree.”

“Yes,” Buckingham said. “Everyone knows Gilly eventually married and returned to Ireland, but it is unclear if she continued researching Cavan and his followers. The Circle was far underground then, hiding—even though there wasn’t much reason to. The government wasn’t concerned about them. Lincoln was dead by someone else’s hand, and the country was recovering from a brutal war. The world had enough to worry about. No one was going to listen to the fears of a nineteen-year-old in a hoop skirt.”

As Buckingham talked, I couldn’t help but remember that there’s a reason they call us Gallagher
Girls
. It’s not just because the youngest of us are twelve. It’s also because our founder was under twenty. From the very beginning we have been discounted and discredited, underestimated and undervalued. And, for the most part, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

“No one knows if she finished the list or what she might have done with it.” Mr. Solomon shook his head, then smiled. “But I bet your father thought it was real. If he was researching Gilly and her family, then I bet he thought it was real enough to change everything.”

“I don’t get it,” Bex said, sitting up. “What does the Circle today care about a hundred-and-fifty-year-old list of members who’ve been dead for ages?”

“Because the leadership of today’s Circle dates back to that original group,” Buckingham told us. “It’s essentially a family business. Leadership is passed down from generation to generation. And leadership is a closely guarded secret.”

“But if Dad got that list…” I began.

“He would have been able to bring them down,” Mr. Solomon finished for me. “He wanted that list because the only way to kill this monster is to learn the monster’s names.”

“What’s the necklace, Joe?” Aunt Abby asked.

“It’s the key,” I said, thinking about my father’s letter telling us he was hiding something precious in that safe on the other side of the world. “Isn’t it? It’s the key, and my dad was looking for whatever it unlocks, wasn’t he? He was looking for that list.”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Solomon admitted. “The stories about Gilly weren’t very reliable. Some said she went crazy and that’s why she returned to Ireland. Some said she just gave up, moved on, and made babies.” He glanced at Macey, the descendant of one of those babies, and added, “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Me either,” Macey said.

“But Gilly wasn’t a fool,” Mr. Solomon went on. “If she had something that might be valuable someday, then she was going to keep it someplace safe.”

“Locked up with this?” I asked, holding up the necklace one last time.

“I don’t know. But if your father hid that away—and he never told me about it—then…” Mr. Soloman glanced down at the charm I’d put back around my neck. He didn’t say what everyone was thinking—that it might have been worth dying for.

PROS AND CONS OF BEING ME IN THE MONTH THAT FOLLOWED:

PRO: Turns out, almost starving to death over the summer means that the school chef will make you crème brûlée any time you want it.

CON: Even crème brûlée gets old after a while.

PRO: Shorter haircuts take way less time to dry and fix in the morning.

CON: The fact that the boy you like
now goes to your school
means you have to fix it every day.

PRO: It’s somehow easier to sleep when you finally know where your father is, and that he is at peace.

CON: Not knowing exactly what had happened to him—or to you—means
you
might never be at peace again.

When fall ended and winter came, it didn’t feel as strange as I’d thought it would. My internal clock had caught up, I guessed. Rain beat against the windows. A chill bled through the stone. And as I sat on the leather couch in a small alcove of the library, a single word pounded in my head:
Gillian
.

That was what the nuns had called me—the name I had said over and over in my fever-filled dreams. Summer Me must have known she was important. Summer Me might have known everything, and suddenly I hated the bump on my head for robbing me not only of my memories but also of my progress.

“Cammie,” someone said, but I didn’t turn at the sound of the voice.

“Earth to Cammie…”

“Cammie!” Macey shouted, and I shook my head and turned to see my roommates standing there.

“Are you okay?” Liz asked.

“I’m fine,” I said for 2,467th time that semester. (I know. I was keeping count.)

“I thought you had therapy,” Bex said.

“I did but…then I came here.”

“Okay,” Macey said, trying again. “Then what are you
doing
here?”

“Thinking.”

Even though the mansion is big and solid and reinforced in about a dozen different ways, I could have sworn I heard the building groan as the wind howled beneath the
peck peck peck
of sleet falling against the walls. It should have been easy to stop thinking about summer. But it wasn’t.

“What is it, Cam?” Bex asked, dropping onto the sofa beside me.

“This.” I pulled the necklace over my head and stared down at the seal. “It feels like I’m missing something. About it. About Gilly.”

“I know,” Liz said. “Why have we never seen this before?”

It seemed like a fair question. Our school crest was everywhere, from the brass brackets that held back the heavy velvet curtains to the good china. Gilly had branded every inch of her home with that one symbol as if to make sure we could never forget who and what we were.

“Why haven’t
I
ever seen this crest before?” Macey said. I knew where her frustration was coming from. The Gallagher family was her family, after all, but there was nothing I could say to make it better.

“Here,” Liz said, sitting upright. She walked to the glass-covered bookshelves and held her palm against the small sensor on the wall. A second later, the protective glass slid aside.

“Are those…?” I asked. Liz nodded and smiled a guilty smile.

“Gilly’s original journals? Oh, yeah.” Liz shrugged. “Buckingham gave me clearance the day after she told us all about the crest. I’ve been coming down here in my spare time to read through them.”

“Of course you have,” Bex said with a grin.

“I always wondered why these weren’t in the subs,” I said, taking a pair of cotton gloves and a book from Liz. I open the smooth leather cover and looked down at the most beautiful penmanship I had ever seen.

“Well, they aren’t really classified material.” Liz opened a page at random and started reading aloud. “‘Tonight, father sent Elias to see me. They do not want me to include former slaves in my “youthful experiment,” as it will make it harder for the school and for me. He simply does not understand what my school is to be—what I am to be.’”

“So Gilly’s family…” Macey started, but trailed off.

“Disapproved?” Liz guessed. Then she nodded. “Totally.”

“Awesome.” Macey looked like she’d never been more proud to have Gilly’s blood in her veins.

“Yeah,” Liz went on. “They wanted her to get married and settle down. In journal seven, Gilly writes about how it was only after her parents died that she inherited the mansion and…well…the money. That’s when she was able to move the school here and expand it. Like Buckingham said, she made a really big deal about putting the school crest everywhere the family crest had been.”

“Gilly was awesome,” Bex said.

“Yeah,” I agreed, turning back to the fire. “She was.”

“Does she mention anything about a lock?” Bex asked Liz. “Or the key?”

“You mean the key I didn’t even know I had?” I said.

“Cammie, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Liz said. “We don’t even know that the necklace
is
a key. Maybe it was just some old Gallagher family heirloom your dad found.”

Liz could have been right—she usually was. But I didn’t feel any better.

I ran my finger across the small medallion. “It feels like maybe I’ve seen it before, or…I’m missing something.”

“Well, maybe Summer You did see it somewhere,” Liz said, but I just kept looking at the necklace, hearing my father’s words over and over in my mind.
Key
.
Lock
.
A way for this to be over—a window that can lead to a happy ending.

“Window…”

My voice trailed off as my mind drifted from Dad’s letter to the crest I wore around my neck, and then all the way back to the first assignment Joe Solomon had ever given us.

“Bex, do you remember the day we met Macey?” I asked.

“Of course I do.”

“Do you remember seeing Mr. Solomon in the corridor? Do you remember what he told us to do?”

“Notice things,” Bex said, and with those words, I was gone.

Okay, so I know I’ve given my best friends a lot of reasons to think I might be crazy, but they seemed a whole new kind of worried when I jumped up from the couch and darted down the hall, through the foyer, and up the sweeping staircase at a full run.

Bex was behind me, Macey following close behind, when I turned on to the wide corridor on the second floor that led to the Gallagher family chapel. It was the oldest part of the mansion and the very place where Bex and I had stood during Macey’s first visit to our school. That was where Joe Solomon had told us that covert operatives should not just look—but see.

There was a window overhead, and I heard my teacher’s words and stared up at the kaleidoscope of color that I’d walked beneath every school day since the seventh grade—at the stained glass I’d looked at a million times but had never really seen until then. Something about that lesson and that image must have stuck with me all those years. I knew just what I was looking for, exactly where to find it. And when my roommates finally came to stand around me, I raised my hand.

“
A window
,” I said, quoting my father’s letter and pointing to the stained glass that was different than any other window in the school. There was a field of green, and tall stone walls, which I had always assumed represented our mansion. But that wasn’t it. The green field was too open, the blue beyond too vast—like the sea. And in the center of the lines that crisscrossed the window like a labyrinth I saw it—an emblem identical to the one that, for weeks, I had been wearing around my neck.

“There,” I said, pointing up at the one image of the Gallagher family crest that remained inside our mansion. “I saw it there.”

“It’s a picture,” Bex said.

I shook my head. “It’s a map.”