Say it! Go ahead.
But try as she might, the name Cahill stuck in her throat. Her training was bone deep.
As sunlight poked through the clouds and into the room, a tiny windmill of black-and-white sails began to turn on a table. These knocked a pebble down a chute, striking a hook that released a weighted pulley, which in turn raised a small spring-loaded hammer. The hammer then struck a brass gong, signifying the end of alchemy class.
Soon the distant tune would sound — Mother summoning her, expecting help in the apothecary. Leaving behind the sleepers, Madeleine raced outside. She sped down a sloping path through heather and scrub. A low bank of clouds swept over the moor, casting the village of Scáth below in gray-green mist.
Madeleine looked up to the soft-ceilinged sky as she ran. She thought of her father, a man she’d never met. Mother claimed he had been the greatest alchemist and an even better father. She hoped that wherever he was, he was looking down and seeing the results of her alchemy training. Even more, she hoped he was proud.
In a moment, her shoes hit the cobblestones of town. She wove through winding alleys that echoed with the distant sound of a tin flute, piercing and sweet. This was Mother playing a tune called “Bhaile Anois,” which meant home now. It was composed by Father and had become the traditional Cahill family song of summoning. As she ran, Madeleine waved to the pink-faced baker and soot-blackened chimney sweep, the burly butcher and weary lamplighter.
She dashed around the corner of Front Street. Carriages groaned up the hill, passing an old beggar woman who slept in the shadow of an abandoned stable. Ahead, the street descended toward the lake, where it flattened and followed the gentle curve of the bank. At the bottom of the hill stood O. Babbitt & Daughter Apothecary.
Madeleine slowed. Before the shop, a crowd of people had gathered in the street. A group of men was pounding on the front door. They were dressed in hooded capes of purple and black. Behind them stood a massive wooden dray cart tethered to pack horses. On the cart, three men lay moaning and half dead. Shackled to the cart’s frame, his clothes ripped and face covered in blood, was Professor Xenophilus.
Madeleine stopped.
The old man slowly turned his gaze up the hill. His deadened eyes settled on her. He gestured feebly with an arm that hung at an odd, unnatural angle. Run away, his body language was saying.
One of the caped men spun toward Xenophilus, smacking his head with an open fist. The teacher’s knees crumpled and he fell to the cobblestones. “Old fool,” the man bellowed, “are ye sure there be Cahills here?”
Madeleine stumbled backward at the sound of the name she’d only ever heard uttered by her mother.
How did they know? How could Xenophilus —?
Last week. Under her teacher’s observation she’d sampled an earlier version of the formula. Just a bit. Upon awakening, he’d scolded her about proper dosage. Too strong, and the potion induced coma! Ah, but too weak, and the recipient was half awake, unable to stop from saying his or her innermost thoughts!
The look on his face had startled Madeleine. His usual jovial, patient expression had changed. He seemed confused, as if seeing her for the first time.
I must have told him that day, she thought. Under the earlier, weaker formula, I must have revealed my name. It made sense — her father was so often on her mind. Surely Xenophilus would have recognized the name of such a famous alchemist.
And now the secret had been beaten out of him — because of me, she thought. But by whom? Who were these people?
A loud crack rang out. The men were using a wooden ram now, and the apothecary door was about to give.
“We know you’re in there, woman!” a voice shouted.
“Mother!” Madeleine screamed, running down the hill.
As she passed the stable, the beggar woman moved. Springing to her feet, she grasped Madeleine by the neck and dragged her into the shadows.
Over the years, Madeleine’s training had included ancient fighting techniques to subdue men of great size and strength — but nothing for homeless old women in alleyways. “Let go, you old buzzard!” she cried, struggling against an iron grip.
As she whirled and lashed, the old lady countered every move. “Good grief, will you stop making such a racket!” she finally cried out. “They’ll hear us!”
Madeleine froze in mid struggle. She fell to the ground and looked up into her adversary’s face. “Mother?”
Olivia Cahill pulled back her woolen hood. “This old buzzard just saved your life,” she said.
“I’m so sorry!” Madeleine protested.
Olivia put a gentle finger on her daughter’s lips. “We must be quiet, and quick—”
Below them a voice boomed, loud and angry. “Open in the name of Lord Vesper!”
Vesper.
The name hit Madeleine like a shift in air pressure. As if the entire world were converging on her, pressing against her heart and brain. All her life, Damien Vesper had seemed more bogeyman than real — the shadow in the closet, the monster under the bed. He will find us or die trying, Mother had said. And he will stop at nothing to get the secrets of the 39 Clues.
Some monsters, Olivia had warned, were real. And to ward off this one, all Madeleine had needed to do was keep her mouth shut over the years.
One simple request, and she had failed.
“I-it’s my f-f-fault, Mother!” Her stammer had returned with a vengeance. Madeleine felt the weight of her own betrayal. She had not only put Xenophilus’s life in peril but exposed her and Olivia to their nemesis.
“Hush, darling daughter. It was only a matter of time. They have been trying for nearly two decades.” Olivia’s voice was parched. Reaching down into the folds of her ragged dress, she pulled out a small leather box. “Consider how lucky we are that we avoided them long enough for you to be prepared.”