

What Emma Left Behind

By Anne and Carolyne Spackman

Copyright 2012 by Anne and Carolyne Spackman

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved.

Spunky identical twins Caera and Claudia Campbell will argue about a lot of things, like who forgot to screw the lid back on the toothpaste tube and whose socks are the ones with holes in the toes or who finished off the absolute last of the peanut butter, but they agree on how it all happened. What was "it?"

How they, with the help of their best friend, Ana, solved the age-old mystery of Emma Campbell's murder. Neither of the girls expected to have the scary dreams that took them back in time, or to find Emma Campbells' diary. Emma Campbell had been dead for two hundred years, and the Campbell treasure had been missing for just as long. And neither of the girls ever expected to let the Davenport twins in on their adventure. After all, Alex and Andrew had been their greatest enemies since pre-school!

But a lot happened that year to change everything!
Before the Storm

"You?!" she cried as the darkened figure stepped nearer. "You?!" She couldn't hide her surprise. Because she knew who he was, the man who had been trying to kill her. He had found her at last.

She turned and ran. The pier was cold and wet, and she felt the chill seeping into her feet. Into her thin silk shoes, with big buckles and heels too high to really run in.

She was alone, crying her terror into the night. Only he was just behind her.

The fog was such a thick vapor, she couldn't even see the shore.

She heard breathing behind her, close behind her.

Help me! She thought in fear. It couldn't end this way!

Suddenly she shrieked as hands clasped around her throat. She was dragged backwards a few feet as she struggled desperately against the huge hands cutting off air.

Her head shook and convulsed as she tried to gasp for breath. There was none. The world was going dark. She felt a small sting on her neck, like a hard little stone pressing into her flesh.

No!!... the world was spinning. She could no longer see. But as her thoughts began to fail, she felt creeping cold around her, the creeping cold of icy water filling up her lungs.

It can't end this way! I will not rest.

And then all went black.

* * * * *

"Claudia Campbell, will you please pay attention and answer the question!" Mrs. Smith cried, glaring hard at the not quite thirteen year-old girl sitting at a desk by the window.

Uh-oh. Caera Campbell winced.

Claudia was looking outside at a white birch tree in the school courtyard, but now she looked back at her teacher. Mrs. Smith was what the students of her seventh grade English class called scary. Her crafty, ice-blue eyes peered at Claudia above thick, silver-rimmed glasses, and her unruly steel-gray hair was tied in a loose bun on the back of her head with wispy tufts framing her round, red face. A face that grew redder the more irritated Mrs. Smith became.

"It's a gerund?" Claudia guessed. Was it possible no one else could hear how fast her heart was racing?

"Correct." Mrs. Smith said in disappointment. Then, her eyes slowly narrowed in irritation. Her face got redder. There was nothing the old woman despised more than daydreaming or the person she caught doing it.

Mrs. Smith was a very stern old lady who liked to feel in control of her students, and she had been known to say, "I run a tight ship," on the first day of classes.

Today, Mrs. Smith appeared to be in one of her "the problem with kids today" moods, or at least that was what Claudia and Caera called them. Mrs. Smith could become downright preachy about what was specifically wrong with whatever unfortunate victim--oops, student, she chose on any given day. Claudia knew she really shouldn't have let her attention wander or she was bound to become the focal point at which Mrs. Smith could unleash her frustrations. Frustrations about the ills of modern society and the growing perniciousness (one of their weekly vocabulary words) of youth.

Caera Campbell was sitting in safety at the back of the classroom, but she was still afraid of Mrs. Smith. Of course, she wasn't afraid for her own sake. She was worried about her sister Claudia, her identical twin sister Claudia.

Claudia had started staring out the window again. Mrs. Smith had noticed and was headed her way. There was nothing Caera could do to save her!

"Claudia, is there something interesting you want to share with the rest of us?" Mrs. Smith asked icily.

"Me?" Claudia asked, whitening. If you have ever had a teacher like Mrs. Smith, you can guess how she felt. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Of course you, dear."

Claudia sat a moment, uncomfortable.

"Well, actually—no." Claudia said.

"No?"

"It's—I was thinking of a story for our writing assignment."

"Claudia Campbell, do you expect me to believe—" Mrs. Smith began.

Then the bell rang and drowned out the rest.

"See you tomorrow, Mrs. Smith?" Claudia asked.

"Yes, Claudia, more than likely." Mrs. Smith sighed and retreated reluctantly, as though it wasn't worth the effort to pursue Claudia's humiliation. As Mrs. Smith returned to man her post at the blackboard, Claudia picked up her blue and green bookbag and hurried to the door. Caera was already waiting outside in the hallway, where the coast was clear.

The Campbell twins headed down the middle school hallway, dodging this way and that as students rushed by eating, laughing, scattering papers onto the already littered floor, and squirting water into each other's faces out of little plastic water-guns. Claudia often wondered if there were a single middle school in the country that was known for being clean and orderly.

Caera and Claudia Campbell looked exactly alike but never wore the same outfit at the same time if they could help it. Both girls had light blue eyes and bone-straight, dark blond hair with reddish streaks, which is a nice way of saying dishwater blond. They were both tall for their age, athletic, spunky, and smart when they wanted to be (which really meant that they could be lazy if not challenged hard enough). Of course, as twins, they liked a lot of the same things, especially in music, books, and movies, though they had slightly different personalities.

More than anything, both girls despised questions like, "So which one is the smart twin?" and "Which one is the fun twin?" Asking these kinds of questions was the worst way of annoying real twins, as far as they were concerned. Honestly, who wanted to be branded the dumb twin or the boring twin? Caera and Claudia thought they were both pretty much equal, but other people seemed to relish the opportunity to make comparisons. Other twin questions were okay, though, Caera and Claudia admitted. Sometimes people asked them, "So what's it like being a twin?"

Caera and Claudia always answered this with a question of their own.

"So what's it like not being a twin?" they wondered.

Still, in general they were pretty glad they had each other, even though worrying about each other could be a drag now and again. After all, how many other people had to put up with their family members hanging around them during the day? Most teachers tried to keep Caera and Claudia apart whenever they could by putting the twins in different classrooms for the same subjects. But the only thing more annoying to the twins than being stuck with each other whether they liked it or not was being forcefully kept apart. Which their parents did to them sometimes, especially when the girls started arguing.

Caera and Claudia argued a lot, about silly things like who forgot to screw the lid on the toothpaste tube or whose turn it was to take out the trash. And when Caera and Claudia fought, they really fought. But they made up fast, too, and when they made up, they forgot all about the argument they'd just had, no matter how nasty they had just been to each other. Their mother sometimes called them "an old married couple", whatever that meant. Caera and Claudia suspected this comment was meant to be an insult, but they hadn't quite figured out how yet.

Finally, they reached their lockers, which were, of course, arranged alphabetically and right next to each other's. Caera made a mental note of her homework assignments, took out her world cultures history book from her locker with its tattered paper cover and tossed it irreverently into the mess of papers in her backpack. She slammed the locker shut with a loud bang and pushed it once again to make sure it was closed.

Meanwhile Claudia packed away the English book in her pretty pegasus bookbag. History, French, science, and English were classes the girls shared at the same time, but they took all the same subjects, so they kept a copy of the math book and the music book permanently at home. In fact, the twins thought the system they had devised was ingenious, truly ingenious. Who needed to lug home more heavy books than absolutely necessary? So, every day during lunch they just made sure to swap the math and music books they kept at school.

"Claudia, you've got to stop doing that." Caera said suddenly as she waited for Claudia to finish rummaging through her locker.

"What?" Claudia asked, completely baffled, now closing her locker door gingerly.

Caera sighed. Wasn't it obvious? "Daydreaming in class, especially this early in the school year." She said. "You know how—"

"People can never remember which one of us does what." Claudia finished. It was very easy for them to finish each other's sentences. It was almost as if they could read each other's minds sometimes. People always asked them, too, if being twins meant they had ESP or something, or if they could cheat on tests by talking to each other telepathically. They were still waiting to see if they ever could.

"Right." Caera nodded. "Everyone will say, 'there goes Claudia Campbell'. She and her sister always look like they're someplace else! So if you're not going to pay attention, then at least look like you're listening."

"I'll try to remember." Claudia's eyes drifted toward the hallway.

"Are you okay?" Caera asked.

"Sure." Claudia said. "Hey, Caera?"

"What?"

"Have you ever imagined what it would have been like if we'd been born a hundred years ago? I mean, can you imagine what this place must have looked like back then?"

So this was what she'd been daydreaming about?!

"Not really." Caera said sarcastically and shot her sister a skeptical look. "There was just a field here, anyway." Honestly, Claudia always asks the strangest questions at the strangest times, Caera thought.

"I bet it was interesting living way back when." Claudia continued. "Hey, Caera, how come nothing interesting ever seems to happen to us?"

"Because absolutely nothing interesting ever happens in this little town." Caera said knowingly. And it was true. They went to school in a tiny seaside town in New England so undistinguished that even other people in the small state of Massachusetts had rarely heard of it. (We won't mention the name, though, so as not to offend anyone living there.)

"You mean nothing ever happens to stupid girls." A mocking voice interrupted.

Laughter sounded behind the twins at an uncomfortable volume.

Caera and Claudia turned around and came face to face with the Davenport duo, Alex and Andrew, the only other set of twins in the seventh grade. The girls glared at them defiantly. Alex and Andrew just smiled in an irritating way.

Both boys had feathered black hair and sky blue eyes, so the only way to tell them apart unless you really knew them was that Alex wore a brown leather watch on his left arm. Andrew never seemed to care about what time it was, or anything much for that matter, and was always late wherever he went.

Alex (he was wearing a watch) was grinning fiendishly now. He broke away suddenly, with a triumphant call of "Twinkies!" Both boys danced away but kept strategically within range close enough to hurl further insults.

It was a well-known fact to everyone in the seventh grade that the Davenports and the Campbells disliked each other. Their rivalry dated clear back to Rockport pre-school, when they had been forced to share the same sandbox. Claudia could just imagine how it must have happened—

"Oh look, two sets of twins—one boys and one girls! My my, how cute! Let's let them play together!"

Well, that idea had worked all right for a while, until one afternoon, Andrew had stuck a wad of chewing gum on top of Caera's head, and her mother had had to cut nearly a third of her hair to get it all out. Caera had been miserable for years waiting for her hair to grow even, and she and Claudia had never forgotten the incident. Or how the girls had been teased by the Davenports ever since.

The rivalry had developed and continued over the years, and even though the girls had recently noticed that the Davenports were kind of clever and maybe even cute, Caera and Claudia would never admit they thought so. Caera still said she'd rather drink rat poison than ever admit this to another soul, but that was just Caera being dramatic. Claudia had thought that now they were all too old for name-calling and holding grudges.

Apparently, however, Alex and Andrew didn't agree.

"Shut up, Alex-ander!" Claudia put emphasis on the last syllables of his name, because she knew that he preferred to be called Alex and because she couldn't think of any other comeback. At the beginning of every school year, he always made it a point to his teachers that he hated his full legal name. Alex winced and turned to leave, but Andrew had a sudden inspiration.

"Ah man, I'm afraid!" he said, in a way that suggested he was anything but. "Alex, we'd better watch out, or else we'll be in double trouble!" The boys laughed, with the kind of laugh that really let you know your place, somewhere on a scale between laundry lint and toenail clippings. The boys were still laughing as they continued down the hallway and disappeared through a door. Claudia watched them leave, steaming.

Double trouble?! When would those Davenports ever come up with some original insults? she wondered.

"Were they trying to be funny?" Claudia asked with a shrug. "I suppose it hasn't occurred to them that they're twins, too. We could just as easily make fun of the fact that they've been sharing one brain since birth—"

"Not if you don't want them to use that against us later." Caera sighed in resignation. "Come on, Claudia, let's just go home."

She and Claudia agreed and headed toward the main hallway where lots of students stood in large groups to talk, effectively blocking the hallway while waiting for friends who were coming to meet them.

"Excuse me." Caera directed at the crowd that blocked her exit, a crowd mostly made of eighth graders. She waited for them to move, but they kept on talking. No one even turned around as she shoved her way through. She and Claudia walked out of the low, squat school building and across the close-cut front lawn, the hot early autumn sun beating down on them.

Huffing and puffing and trying to catch her breath, the twins' best friend, Ana, ran across the gravelly parking lot to join them. Ana Robinson was shorter than them by an inch or two and had fawn brown hair and hazel eyes that sometimes turned green. They were all as close as sisters. After all, Caera and Claudia were the only ones in school who knew Ana's most dreadful secret, that Mrs. Robinson had named her daughter "Annika" after a character in Pippi Longstocking. Ana was just what everyone called her. She was also what adults called excitable and idealistic, and maybe not as sarcastic as Caera and Claudia were yet, but she was getting there, with a lot of practice.

"Hey guys! I thought you'd already be gone by now." Ana called.

"We got sidetracked." Claudia made a face.

"Alex? or Andrew? or was it both of them?" Ana asked with a laugh.

"How'd you guess?" Caera wondered.

"I didn't." Ana admitted. "Actually, I saw you two just as they were leaving, but I got stopped by Marie Summit, who wanted to talk to me about the school's new newspaper. She thinks she's a real reporter now just like her mother and won't stop interviewing people."

"Hey, I just had a brilliant idea!" Caera interrupted.

"What?" They turned to her.

"Maybe you could spend the night this Friday, Ana. It's the thirteenth!"

"We could stay up all night. Have a movie marathon." Ana suggested.

"As long as you don't fall asleep this time, Ana." Claudia teased. "If you do, we'll just have to freeze your training bra."

"No you won't!" Ana cried. "But the rest of it sounds like fun. Are you guys gonna get pizza?"

"Are you kidding? What else does Caera eat?" Claudia said.

"Shut up!" Caera cried in mock-injured tones. "At least I don't talk about boys every third minute." This was directed at Claudia, but Ana thought Caera was referring to her.

"And so what are you saying—that I do?"

"I don't have to say anything, Ana. You just said it yourself." Ana mocked a hurt look, and Claudia said consolingly,

"Caera doesn't understand, Ana. She'll never be able to love anyone as much as Mr. Pizza."

"That's not funny!'' Caera sniffed. "You guys always team up against me!" Caera had a flair for drama. Of course, the other two didn't always team up against her, but it was sure a lot of fun to see what would happen when they did.

"We're sorry, Caera." Claudia said after a moment.

"Yeah, we're sorry." Ana agreed. Caera brightened.

"Okay, I've got another brilliant idea." Caera said mysteriously.

"What?" Ana asked.

"We could make up a tent on the lawn." Caera said, with an air of excitement.

"Nah, Mom won't let us use the good sheets for that anymore." Claudia reminded her.

"Besides, it's supposed to rain this Friday." Ana said.

"Oh." Caera's face fell.

"Hey, Ana, your mom's here." Claudia said, pointing ahead. Sure enough, Mrs. Robinson's red Oldsmobile had turned into the parking lot with the screech of new tires.

"Well, we'll figure out the details later, okay? Bye Caera, bye Claudia!" Ana said, hurrying away, her green backpack bouncing as she went. She turned back with a wave as her mother's car pulled up beside the curb. The car behind Mrs. Robinson honked for her to get a move on, so Ana rushed inside.

Caera and Claudia waved, feeling less excited by themselves, as the red car sped away. Who wanted to do things with just a twin sister, anyway? they sometimes thought. Everything was so much more fun when Ana was with them. Ana was their third musketeer. Without her, they were just Caera and Claudia.

Sometimes, though, that could be a lot of fun, too.

* * * * *

"Claudia, are these two angles congruent?" Caera asked when she noticed that her sister had just completed the last problem of her math homework. As usual, Caera couldn't resist watching t.v. late on Wednesday night and had just sat down to begin working. The show was also one of Claudia's favorites, and she wasn't about to help Caera now when she'd missed it. Caera and Claudia would do practically anything for each other most of the time, short of murder, but not when one of them had suffered through an assignment while the other was having fun.

"Well, I think you should..." Claudia began, then paused.

Caera turned to her expectantly. She should have caught the mischievous sparkle in her sister's eye, but she was too tired to notice it.

"Look it up!" Claudia finished slyly and laughed.

"Claudia!" Caera whined, looking about for something to throw at her, like a wadded-up tissue, or an eraser. There was nothing on hand. Caera frowned, watching as Claudia tucked her assignment neatly into the first folder of her binder.

"Some sister you are." Caera finally threw at her.

Claudia just shrugged. Some days, Caera and Clauda sniped at each other all day long and kept a running tally of who was winning. Today was one of those days, and Caera was way out in front. However, that thought was of little consolation to Caera as she slowly looked up the answer she wanted in her book.

"Goodnight." Claudia called in the meanwhile to their parents in the living room. Then she trudged upstairs to her bedroom door.

Claudia was so tired that her muscles were aching. Her eyes got heavy and bleary and a perpetual yawn lingered in her throat. She brushed her teeth quickly as usual and went to her room. The room was dark and quiet, and since she hated absolute silence, she clambered onto the dusty window ledge to open the window for some outdoorsy sound. Then she put on her flannel pajamas and crawled into bed, but she kept looking at the stuffed unicorn on the floor that sat perfectly still, seemingly faceless behind its shadow.

Why did it have to keep watching her like that?

Claudia pulled the covers up tightly around her neck and fell asleep.

She slept peacefully for several hours until she heard midnight chime loudly on the grandfather clock in the hall and almost woke up. As she settled back into her dream, she realized something had changed.

She wasn't in Asheley's Ice Cream Shop anymore getting her favorite mint chocolate chip and heath bar crunch double-scoop ice cream cone. She was wandering in the fog across an ancient pier, listening to the nearby docking of a fishing boat.

The night was cold, and a salty sea breeze sent goosebumps over her skin, which annoyed her, because she was always so careful to bring a sweater with her wherever she went. She felt a shadow come up from behind her, and without knowing why, she started to run. Why was she so afraid? She didn't know.

After a moment, she found she couldn't go any faster, and the shadow was gaining on her. She screamed, screamed loudly, and was surrounded by the echo of her own voice. The dark and silent lighthouse loomed in front of her, but out of reach. She was alone.

Then without warning icy hands clasped around her throat. She tried to scream but couldn't catch her breath. At the same time, a foghorn pierced the silent air. Its call was her cry, her scream, yet the sound masked her struggle. No one heard her struggling with the person attacking her. No one saw her in the fog. She was going to die out here, all alone, in that deafening blast...

Wait a minute--she was able to break free of her terror. That's no foghorn, she thought.

"BBBZZZZZ!!!! " Claudia woke up, leaned over, and picked up her alarm clock. She shut it off and then set it down again.

"For once I don't hate you." She told it with a laugh. Then she knuckled her eyes, pushed back her covers, got up, and stretched her arms.

The day was bright and warm.

But when she looked in the bathroom mirror, there were purple-red welts around her neck.

* * * * *

School was awful that day. As if life weren't bad enough just getting adjusted to another school year after a long summer, Claudia had to share three classes with a snobby know-it-all named Emily Miles. Emily was the sort of person who had to know what everyone around her was doing so that she could plan in advance how to manipulate them. Emily wore her hair in glossy blond curls, and she looked really sweet, especially to adults who didn't know her any better, but her appearance was deceiving, as everyone in the seventh grade found out sooner or later. Emily was the sort of person who used people to get them to do what she wanted and then threw them away without even a "thank-you" for services rendered.

Somehow, though, there were still people who wanted to be Emily's friend. Weak-willed people, Claudia thought, since Emily was bossy and always had to have her own way. Emily had been popular with almost everyone in elementary school, but for the last few years, people were getting sick of her self-centered attitude. Some of her old friends now liked Caera and Claudia or Marie Summit better, but since no one dared bad-mouth Marie, Emily opted to make the twins' lives as miserable as possible, which she did on a daily basis.

The first class Emily shared with them was history, but opportunity rarely arose for talking, thanks to the efforts of their eccentric teacher, Mr. Hoffmeyer. From reports from older siblings and by word of mouth, everyone determined that talking was something not to be caught doing in his class.

Claudia watched anxiously now as her teacher paced around the room. She hoped and prayed that the bell would ring soon. Not that she didn't like school most of the time, or reading, or history, or even Mr. Hoffmeyer, who couldn't help being so weird. (And she would never have admitted that she thought his weird asides were pretty funny.) It was just that Mr. Hoffmeyer always added more assignments on a whim whenever his lesson plan ended early, and she sensed another such whim coming on.

"Well, nothing more on the Stone Age--" Mr Hoffmeyer said, glancing through his notes.

The class waited anxiously.

"Okay then," Mr. Hoffmeyer said, slapping his portfolio closed. "I guess you can go ahead and read pages eighty-two to ninety-five in your history book for homework tonight." Mr. Hoffmeyer grinned and rubbed his hands together mock-fiendishly. Under his thick glasses, his dark beady eyes swept the room. A light of recollection came into them. "Oh yes, and tomorrow we'll be having a quiz over pages twenty to ninety-five in your textbook." He chuckled to himself as the entire class groaned.

Was it possible that Mr. Hoffmeyer really meant to act so goofy? Claudia suspected once more, for perhaps the tenth time. Grown-ups never made any sense, she thought. Well, at least he wasn't boring!

While Mr. Hoffmeyer began his lecture on various prehistoric timelines, Claudia spied Emily copying Jessica Ford's science homework. Claudia knew it was Jessica's because of the miniature drawing of Mr. Hoffmeyer on the front, which looked like a tiny stick figure with a huge head. Claudia could barely make out the label "Mr. Brown Suit". Mr. Hoffmeyer unfailingly wore one.

Every day one teacher or another was on Jessica's homework paper. Jessica loved to draw, but Claudia was afraid that Mr. Hoffmeyer wouldn't understand that if he happened to see it. Claudia liked Jessica, even though she was trying to be Emily's friend, and Claudia didn't want her to get in trouble, but secretly, she wished Mr. Hoffmever would turn around and catch Emily cheating. But when Mr. Hoffmeyer did turn around, Jessica had her history book covering her paper, and she and Emily left unscathed when the bell rang.

Would they ever get caught? Claudia wondered. If they did, she truly hoped she would be there to see it!

* * * * *

Later that morning, after fifth period, Claudia and Caera met Ana at her locker to ask if she could stay over Friday night. Caera was munching on a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie, so she nudged her sister's elbow for her to begin.

"What'd your mom say about coming over Friday, Ana?"

"You know, I remembered this time to wait until she was in a good mood to ask, but it's okay--as long as I get plenty of sleep."

"Why do mothers always care about that? Why should they care how much sleep we get?" Caera wondered. "It's not as if they're the one's who'll be tired the next day."

"Beats me." Ana shrugged. "But I've got to get up early so I can go to some dumb dental appointment she scheduled specially for Saturday morning." Ana said. "I've been trying to get her to cancel it, but she couldn't get any other morning off work to take me. I'm supposed to get my teeth sealed or something."

"That's too bad." Caera shook her head.

"Claudia, how're you doing on your Science Fair Project?" Ana asked, changing the subject. "I just can't think of anything to experiment on. What're you doing?"

Claudia thought a moment.

"I don't know, but I guess I'd better think of something soon. Our class only has a week left before it's due."

"Any ideas?"

"I've always wanted to make crystals out of sugar, but Mrs. Johnson says our experiments have to prove or disprove a hypothesis."

"Well, I'll tell you what I'm doing." Caera said with a laugh.

"What?" Ana arched a brow.

"I'm comparing the nutritional values of Pillsbury and Betty Crocker cake mixes. You never know what you might find."

"An awful lot of sugar!" Claudia teased.

Ana laughed. "Ooh, I'd better go."

"Where?" Caera asked.

"P.E." Ana said. "I wanna get there early so I can psych myself up before the physical fitness test. Wish me luck."

Claudia expressed the necessary sympathies while Caera stood by looking mournful. Ana turned around sharply, and the twins groaned as they watched their friend bump into a frowning Mr. Hoffmeyer.

* * * * *

In science class, Claudia and Caera passed notes with plans for Friday. Mrs. Johnson eyed Claudia suspiciously as she bent over to pick up a note that Caera had dropped onto the floor in the middle of the aisle between them.

"Now, class," she was saying, "what is the byproduct of this process? Amisha, can you tell us?"

"Water?" Amisha guessed, a crease forming between her brows.

"That's right." Mrs. Johnson nodded; Amisha smiled.

Meanwhile, Claudia was getting really uneasy, though she didn't know why. She just looked around the room, her heart racing, as Mrs. Johnson led the discussion. What was wrong with her? she wondered. She just couldn't concentrate anymore. As soon as the bell rang, she made her way out of the classroom. Following behind her, Caera picked up on the anxious mood of her sister.

"Hey, what's the matter, Claudia?" she whispered in concern.

"Caera," Claudia said, giving her a frightful look. "Have you ever dreamed you were drowning?"

"No." Caera said with a little shrug.

"I have. I dreamed I was drowning last night."

"So?" Caera said.

"So--it's nothing." Claudia shook her head.

"I don't believe you."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid you'll say if I tell you anything else about it." Claudia said.

"Huh?" Caera stood still, staring after her as Claudia left the room.
When the Lights Went Out

Friday night at the Campbell house was always something of an adventure. This Friday, however, even the New England weather conspired to deliver a fitting atmosphere for an evening of intrigue, at least as much intrigue as three adolescent imaginations could contrive.

Lightening flashed across the darkening gray sky, and angry thunder rumbled in the distance. Ana arrived at the Campbell house just as the downpour began. She slammed the door of her mother's new Oldsmobile, wetting her hand on the handle and got her suitcase from the back seat.

Ana picked up her overstuffed brown suitcase from the ground and grasped a large, white seal in the other hand. Ana brought her lovable companion with her every time she spent the night, and his worn fur coat was evidence to prove it. She waved good-bye to her mother and ran up the Campbell's long, rain-slick pathway, stopping under the shelter of the front door. She rang the brass doorbell and leaned against the gray stone of the old house to try to keep dry.

The Campbells' home, Argyll House, had been passed from generation to generation for hundreds of years. The twins' grandfather had died just two years before they were born, and since their father was an only child, they had been living in the house ever since. As one of the oldest but more obscure houses in New England, it had recently been named an historical landmark.

Argyll House was one of the last remaining Georgian mansions from the eighteenth century, and the outside was all ashlar stone brought all the way from Pennsylvania and so large that when it was built people had said it would be impossible to heat, just like the Van Cortlandt mansion in New York. It wasn't surprising that every room in Argyll House seemed to have wide, sweeping fireplaces, which had been closed off when the Campbells had central heating put in way back in the 60's.

Argyll House had twenty rooms spread evenly on three floors and a slate-roofed attic that was always leaking. One pathway from the street led directly to the front door. There had once been stables at the back, but they had long ago been converted into a quaint little guesthouse. The guesthouse was adjoined to the garage by a very wide wall made of old stone and age-crumbled brick that Mrs. Campbell had thought too remarkable to knock down. The driveway sloped away from the house, almost hidden from view from the front floor. The house was enclosed by a square, neatly clipped, rich green lawn, underbrush, stone dykes, and lots of purple iris flower beds that were now empty.

Beyond the lawn an untouched New England forest stretched away, dark and dense in places, filled with silver birch, maple, oak, and pine. The Campbell family still owned a large stretch of useless land that not even maple farmers would want; and there was a national forest on the other side, which kept any construction companies from developing the area. Traces of beautiful autumn reds, oranges, and yellows dotted the remaining dark green leaves of summer.

It was four miles into the west side of town, which had grown considerably in size and population over the last hundred years or so. The original, eastern side of town bordered on the ocean. Caera, Claudia, and Ana loved to watch the small pontoons and ships in the harbor and hear the seagulls cry overhead. They loved the smell of the salty sea breeze as they raced down the fishermen's pier toward the beach during the summer, past yachting clubs, seafood restaurants, and tourist shops.

They all missed the old lighthouse, though. A new lighthouse had been built on the ruins of the two hundred year old monument that had burned in a recent fire. The lighthouse sat on a rocky outcropping, a good climb above the ocean.

Ana lived in town in a nineteenth century Victorian town house built ten years after the Civil War. Ana relished any opportunity to spend time away from home because she could escape her obnoxious and annoying fifteen year old brother Jason, who was now trying to get everyone to call him "Jake", just because it sounded cool.

Ana rang the doorbell again. A minute later, Caera and Claudia arrived to help her inside and put her things upstairs in the twins' guestroom. Ana marveled at the newly restored paneling; the wood gleamed and a cool breeze whistled from the overhead fan.

"You've fixed it up!" And said in wonder.

Caera smiled. "And I even helped with the varnish."

Presumably, the Campbell house had once been beautiful and marvelously new inside, and many of the rooms held original Chippendale and Queen Anne chairs, but now the wide, curving staircase with its ornately carved balusters creaked, and in many places the wainscoting was scratched bare and falling to ruin and so of course needed to be replaced. Repair was slow going, however, and expensive, as anyone with an old house knew.

"Caera did that wall." Claudia pointed. "Look closely, and you'll see where she missed a few spots."

Caera ran after her and pretended to punch her. Claudia collapsed in the corner, where they had made a gigantic bed by pushing two double beds together and covering it with two big blue sleeping bags, and she surrendered herself to Caera's retaliation.

"Help me!" Claudia called at last. Ana dropped her sleeping bag and hurried to try to separate the twins. Ana had learned to master twin diplomacy, as Mr. Campbell called it, early in the girls' friendship, and then some time later she'd discovered that there wasn't really a danger of Caera and Claudia actually killing each other.

Caera gave up and bounded to the closed-up cabinet.

"Who wants to watch a movie?" she asked and pulled open the doors. "It's either Agatha Christie or Cleopatra." Caera said, picking over DVD titles.

They decided to watch Cleopatra, even though the three of them had already seen it several times. After the movie came on, they bounded on the bed in mock battle when the Roman legions appeared, and they laughed and giggled when Cleopatra tumbled out of the giant carpet she'd been carried in to see Caesar. Caera got up on the bed after a time and started to deliver a speech Antony wouldn't give until later, a speech from her favorite scene in the movie.

Then suddenly, a knock sounded at the door, and Claudia got up to open it. The twins' mother walked in with two cheese pizzas, one box on top of the other and a package of paper plates tucked under one arm.

"There are sodas downstairs, but I don't want you spilling them on the carpet," she said. The girls shrugged and Claudia took the pizzas, then set them down on the oak table to the left of the T.V. Claudia opened the package of paper plates and took a piece of pizza from each box. Ana and Caera did the same, and they returned to the movie as they ate, and then, even though they complained about it, they went downstairs for a drink.

* * * * *

Three hours later, Caera was removing the last batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from the oven. The recipe only made two dozen cookies, so Caera had doubled the ingredients. She put two dozen cooled cookies on a plate, and they all hurried upstairs to watch another movie.

Claudia pleaded to watch Star Wars or at least The Empire Strikes Back, but Ana and Caera disagreed on the grounds that they all had the lines memorized, so Ana suggested watching a murder mystery. At first Claudia protested, but eventually she agreed. It was so dark and stormy outside that it seemed the perfect atmosphere for their Agatha Christie marathon.

When the second Agatha Christie movie was halfway over, Claudia crawled into her sleeping bag to go to sleep. She didn't particularly like wondering who would end up being murdered next. Claudia just stared at the ceiling for several minutes when she heard Caera and Ana scream as a woman was stabbed in the back. Then she turned over, plugged her ears, and soon drifted into an uneasy sleep.

"Where am I?" she thought.

She was running, running on the pier again. She felt its chill through her toes, as though the pier under her feet were real. Looking down, she had noticed that she was wearing little, thin, silk blue shoes with big buckles and high heels. When she thought about it, she realized that her clothes were far tighter than she had ever known them to be, like she had a corset on or something and a puffy quilted jacket on the outside. Everything about this dream was so real, too real, not at all like a dream was supposed to be. She was back where she'd been the evening before, back by the water. What was she doing there?

She had a feeling that she had been trying to hide something before it was too late. But what was it? And had she succeeded?

She was back in the fog again, back where she could hardly see anything a foot ahead of her, and she didn't know where to go. She turned aimlessly, listening for the water that would tell her which direction to go.

Then the mists that swirled around her thinned out. The sky above was dark, and the stars weren't of much use in helping her to see. The sound of waves got louder. And then she heard breathing, strained breathing, behind her.

Someone was chasing her. She ran faster, tried to get away--but there was nowhere to go. She ran thinking that she should have known why she was in danger and who it was that followed her, but she couldn't remember. Then, Claudia felt something strong locking around her neck. Something also gouged into her neck, like a hard little stone—maybe a ring on a person's finger? She jerked to a halt, tried to struggle, and couldn't catch air.

She fought for her life... but the world was spinning.

And then she felt creeping cold around her, the creeping cold of icy water filling up her lungs.

She couldn't let it end this way! She wouldn't rest, not until someone knew what had happened...

Claudia sat upright in horror. It was raining hard outside, and raindrops on the roof echoed through the drainpipes far above her head. She was cold. Claudia looked down and saw that she had kicked her sleeping bag to the end of the bed. The last thing that she could remember was falling asleep when the girl in the movie was strangled. Or--wasn't she stabbed?

Except for the thunder outside, the room was completely silent. Claudia sat still as a gripping fear began to creep over her. She couldn't bear the silence!

Then suddenly, just as she was about to have a heart attack (or so she thought), someone began snoring softly. Claudia started.

Nothing happened, except that the person went right on snoring.

Claudia relaxed and even smiled. Feeling a sneeze coming on, she reached an arm over to her bedside table and groped in the darkness until she found the tissue box.

What was it she had been dreaming about?

As she pulled the covers under her chin and went back to sleep, something intangible gnawed on her soul.

A voice was whispering sadly in the night, the wail of a lost child. A shadowed face appeared beyond the windowpane, peering in.

Will no one ever know who murdered me? The ghost cried into the wind.

* * * * *

Lightening struck a tree in the nearby forest with a crash. It was pouring outside, and rain pelting on the roof could be heard dripping into pools of water under the eaves. The grandfather clock in the hall slowly chimed the hour.

Across the road, a tree creaked and groaned as the howling wind forced it on its side, knocking down the power line that supplied the Campbells' house. Ana awoke with a start and started nudging the twins until they woke up, too.

"I think we should tell your parents about this, don't you?" Ana suggested nervously.

"I take it you're volunteering for the job, Ana." Caera said.

"Hey, why me?"

"Because you suggested it. I know it's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it." Caera said.

"And that somebody is me?"

"Glad you agree. Just don't trip in the dark, and keep telling yourself there's no such thing as the bogeyman." Caera gave a little farewell salute.

"What a friend."

"Ignore her. She gets even more hyperactive when she eats chocolate," Claudia laughed. "Don't worry, I'll go first."

Claudia opened the door and peered out into the dark hallway.

* * * * *

"Why do we have to go get the flashlight?" Ana whimpered in fright. "It's so dark and scary in your house with the lights out. Why couldn't your dad just get it?"

"Because Caera had the nerve to volunteer us, and it was too late for me to say anything once mom had given us her typical speech about how considerate we were and everything." Claudia looked back at Caera, who was muttering something under her breath; probably something which would provoke an argument if Claudia heard what it was, but the girls were now fast approaching the Campbells' large rectangular library, and Claudia decided to ignore it.

Claudia pushed the door open and went in first, moving past the oblong aisles of books until she reached a door on the far side, about thirty feet from the main entrance. The small room beyond the door had once stored bookshelves, and several old racks full of dusty books still leaned against the back wall.

"Don't you guys ever dust in here?" Ana was saying.

"Yeah, but it just gets dusty again." Caera said, looking ahead to the storage room.

The twins' father used the room to store a lot of old junk that had accumulated over the years, spare equipment, tools, and batteries. Claudia hurried ahead, then tried to remember where he kept the flashlights. On her left, some shelves on the wall held various tools and extra light bulbs, and Claudia thought that she could see several flashlights on the edge of the top shelf.

She stood on the small stepladder and swiped at the top shelf; on her tiptoes she could just barely reach the flashlights. Finally grasping one, she lost her balance and fell back against the old, stone bookcase that was cemented to the wall, beyond which was the guesthouse at thirty feet away.

"Ouch!" Claudia screamed as a book from the rack fell on her head and onto the floor, opening to a withered yellow page. Claudia leaned forward and picked up the book, carefully shaking the dust from it before grabbing one of the fallen flashlights. Behind her the book had opened to a picture of the Campbell house, painted sometime before 1927.

Claudia could estimate the date because that was when the stables had been changed into a guesthouse, and the stables were shown in the picture she held in her hands. Claudia looked up as Caera and Ana suddenly entered the small room, coughing and waving their arms in the musty air.

"Turn on the flashlight," Caera commanded but saw that Claudia was still rubbing her head. Caera grabbed for the flashlight and turned it on, accidentally shining it in Claudia's eyes.

"Stop it, Caera!" Claudia griped as she put the book back on top of the bookcase, entering the main library before closing the door. Caera and Ana were already waiting for her in the hallway.

* * * * *

"That's it, everyone," Mr. Campbell announced, stepping from the ladder in the basement and laying his toolbox on the floor. "The circuit breaker's just not working. I think the power lines must be down. We'll have to use lamps and batteries until the power company sends someone out to fix the lines."

"When will that be?" Caera demanded.

"I don't know," her father replied. "Now off to bed. There's nothing more we can do." Mr. Campbell pointed in the direction of the guestroom and headed toward his bedroom. Caera, Claudia, and Ana trudged through the house, back to the guestroom.

"Guess this means we can't watch the end of Cleopatra tomorrow morning." Caera sighed. "And I wanted to see that scene when Cleopatra leaves Antony alone to face Augustus Caesar in the sea battle!"

"Caera likes the guy who plays Antony a lot, doesn't she?" Ana observed.

"She likes the way he talks," Claudia said.

"Can you imagine how people survived without electricity?" Ana wondered, thinking about ancient times."

"Pretty scary thought." Caera agreed. "No television, no DVD's, no lights— No computers, either." Ana said with a shiver.

"No washing machines. No electric stoves, no stereos, no video games." Claudia added. "It must have been boring."

"I don't know." Caera said. "Cleopatra had torches in her pyramid, and she had everyone in the world at her feet. Not bad, huh?"

"She didn't live in a pyramid." Claudia said.

"Pyramid, temple, whatever you call it." Caera shrugged. "She had a lot of things and riches we'll never have, and everyone did what she told them to do."

"True." Ana agreed. "But look what happened to her! Augustus Caesar invaded Egypt and she went and killed herself by putting her hand in a basket with a poisonous snake in it."

"An asp, I know, it's so sad!" Caera sighed. "You know, the people who built this house didn't have electricity, either."

"I wonder how they made it through the winters?" Ana asked. "There couldn't have been many people living in this area back before electricity."

"And I'll bet pirates used to maraud the coast." Caera added, in growing excitement.

"I'll bet they didn't," Claudia said.

"Use your imagination, Claudia!" Caera threw back gruffly.

Claudia didn't answer.

When they got back to the guestroom, they tumbled into bed and slept until well past sunrise.

Caera dreamed about Antony in battle, Ana dreamed about skiing, and Claudia was relieved not to dream at all.

* * * * *

The three girls slept late the next morning. Caera was up first, and at about eleven o' clock, they walked sleepily into the kitchen for breakfast. The twins' mother set three plates on the table and put a box in the middle of it. Caera recognized the brand immediately and pulled a vanilla creme filled doughnut and a glazed chocolate doughnut from the box. Claudia took a raspberry jelly and two powdered doughnut holes.

"Wow, doughnuts for breakfast!" Caera said. "Kind of makes you wish the power would go out more often, huh?"

They all laughed. Ana couldn't decide what she wanted, but she finally settled on a strawberry creme and a filled raspberry jelly doughnut. Typically, Mrs. Campbell insisted that they drink a glass of milk (and it was probably going to spoil if they didn't) before they went back upstairs. Ana's mother had asked Ana to be ready at eleven thirty, which only left twenty-five minutes. But Ana was ready in less than ten, so Caera and Claudia waited with her on the front porch. As soon as Mrs. Robinson's car was up the long driveway, Ana opened the back and tossed in her brown suitcase. Caera and Claudia waved good-bye as the car backed up and sped away.

"We're lucky Ana can come out here so often to see us." Caera said.

"Because we live so far away from town or because not many mothers will agree to have twins over instead of just one friend?"

"Both. But I was thinking about our conversation last night. If we'd lived a hundred years ago, it would take an hour to get to town."

"It still takes us an hour when we have to wait for Dad to find his keys." Claudia said, and they laughed.

* * * * *

"All right girls, you can get out of the car now." Mrs. Robinson, Ana's mother, had decided to take the girls to the public swimming pool that Sunday afternoon, and she handed Ana a giant rainbow-colored beach towel before saying good-bye.

"Okay, 'bye mom." Ana tucked the towel under her arm and shut the door.

"Movit, Claudia!" Caera pushed her sister, anxious to be the first inside.

"Well excuse me, Caera!" Claudia groused. "Do you expect me to go through the car door? I have to open it first, you know."

"Peace! Let's just hurry before the pool's full!" Ana ran ahead, motioning with her hands for them to follow. Caera shoved past Claudia, but Claudia slowed down.

"Now will you use cash or swim tags?" Up front, Ana and Caera were paying the cashier. Claudia sat down on the gravel sidewalk, her feet resting on the street.

"...and where's the third member of your party?" The cashier woman was apparently annoyed at being delayed, not that there was anyone else in line behind them, of course.

"Claudia, come on!" Caera yelled to her before handing Ana her admission ticket. She glanced over her shoulder to see Claudia slowly making her way toward them, and she quickly darted over to Claudia and grabbed her arm, dragging her inside. Ana had already found a locker, and by the time Caera and Claudia sat down, she was peeling off her shorts.

"Boy, is it hot outside today," Ana began as the twins got undressed. "I can't wait to cool off." Caera agreed and eagerly pulled off her shorts and T-shirt. Underneath it she wore a plain black bathing suit, a real swimmer's suit. Caera was a great swimmer. All three girls put their clothes, shoes, and towels in their lockers and walked over to the pool.

"Last one in is a rotten egg!" Ana squealed with delight as she jumped in with an enormous splash.

"That's not fair, Ana! You got a head start!" Caera jumped in only a few seconds behind Ana. Claudia had barely moved when Ana and Caera had raced for the pool. When she didn't jump in, Caera and Ana exchanged glances. What was wrong with her?

* * * * *

Claudia was in a daze. Her dreams seemed to take her to another time, another world--a world where she was not herself but another girl from long ago. Whoever she was, she was in terrible danger, and whatever made the bridge between them caused horribly lifelike nightmares. Claudia was beginning to feel as if she herself were in danger. As if something, or someone, wanted her dead. But that was crazy. Who would want to kill her? she tried to reason, yet she was still afraid.

She was more than afraid. She was terrified of the water.

All of a sudden Claudia felt hands--huge, strong hands throwing her into the water. There was no escape... Down, deep under the thrashing waves she fell, powerless to do anything as her body sank to where the water was dark and still. Just when she had abandoned all hope, someone lifted her up into the fresh air and was pounding on her back. She coughed the water out of her chest.

"Claudia, are you okay? You had me really scared for a minute." Claudia opened her eyes. Caera's face was worried.

"Nice going, Caera. That was some joke." Ana was dripping sarcasm.

"What happened?" Claudia was shaken.

"Your sister was upset because you wouldn't jump in, so she pushed you." Ana explained. "Only you didn't come up. You just tucked your arms and legs and sank like a stone."

"Yeah. I had to jump in and drag you out!" Caera said, patting Claudia on the back. "I guess I was lucky the lifeguard wasn't looking, or I would have been in a lot of trouble. But why didn't you start swimming? The water's only five feet deep."

"I guess I just got the wind knocked out of me," Claudia said the first thing that came into her mind, aware that she had almost drowned for a very different reason.

* * * * *

The three girls spent the afternoon in the pool, playing games and taking turns jumping off the diving board until it was time to go home. Ana talked about how waterlogged her fingers were until she climbed into her mother's car.

"Are you sure you guys don't want a ride home?" Ana asked.

"No, our mom's gonna pick us up on her way home from town. She should be here in a few minutes. Thanks, anyway." Caera and Claudia waved good-bye and then sat down on the pavement to wait. Caera saw it as the perfect opportunity to get Claudia to tell her what was bothering her.

"What's wrong, Claudia? For the past two days you've been acting really strangely, and you've hardly paid any attention to me at all. Come on, don't you wanna talk about it?"

"I don't know, Caera. I've been having the same nightmare over and over and I don't know why. It... it feels like it's happening to me, but I know I'm someone else in the dream. I guess it scares me because everything about it's so... so real. And now I'm even thinking about it when I'm awake." It was getting late; the sun went behind a cloud and a cold breeze stirred. Caera didn't know what to say, until their mother's car pulled up.

"Look, here's mom. Com'on, let's go." Caera said, clenching her teeth as she turned away.

Claudia didn't know it, but something was bothering Caera as well, except Caera never let people know when something really scared her. As Caera walked to the car, the rising wind made her shudder. Or maybe, just maybe, it was something else.

* * * * *

Claudia cycled faster, sweat dripping from her forehead behind her blue headband. A cool breeze blew past her neck. She made an unusual sight in the old town square, not because her blue ten-speed sport bike nearly crashed into careless pedestrians on the bumpy red brick sidewalk, but because this was Claudia Campbell and Caera was nowhere in sight. Both girls usually came to town on Sunday afternoons to pay a visit to the best ice cream parlor for miles around, but Caera had been called to the phone and was still talking when Claudia left. Claudia had cycled for nearly an hour before she came to the old part of town.

Coming up on her left was the town library and records building, built in the 1800's. The enormous gray stone building had a spacious lawn surrounded by a natural fence of flowering trees. Claudia quickly chained her bike to a nearby rack and ran up the library's winding entranceway. She had to hurry because the library closed in half an hour.

Claudia soon found the computers and began looking up records books of the history of her town like a young and brazen Sherlock Holmes. As it turned out, they were in the back of the left hand corner and looked as though they hadn't been touched for over fifty years.

After a while, Claudia pulled out an old brown book with a complete history of the town up until the eighteenth century and carefully opened the withered cover.

Published 1902, she noticed. "Whew! This is an old book!" She thought.

Campbell... anything out of the ordinary... she looked over the pages in the index and thumbed to a worn yellow page with a black and white photo of her house above a large printed "Campbell" in calligraphic letters.

She flipped through the pages. There were several portraits of people in frilly satin outfits with strange serene eyes. There were also a lot of details about some religious controversy that had happened in Scotland in the time of Charles II, a controversy which had caused many Scots to go to Ireland, then finally to America. Some of them had apparently settled nearby. Claudia glanced through the pages, then stopped abruptly at the solemn portrait of a young girl with long, dark blonde hair and blue eyes. She wore a broad lace collar and a heavy-looking blue silk dress, and her hair was arranged in a strange fashion high on her head, with curls trailing down.

Claudia just stared at her for a minute. Then, glancing down, she squinted to see the tiny nameplate that had been printed along with the painting.

Emma Campbell, 1767. Claudia spent a moment searching for the name on the opposing page. It was near the bottom and continued onto the next page.

"Born 1755, died 1768."

Claudia almost closed the book. This Emma was only thirteen when she died?

"Emma Campbell was born into a wealthy Scottish immigrant family in 1755," Claudia read in silence. "Her mother, Emma MacArthur, died in 1758. In 1768, the Campbell family ran into debt. James Campbell was murdered on December 27, 1768. Emma Campbell was mysteriously killed the following week, on December 31, 1768.

"Aaron Davenport, a friend and associate of Mr. Campbell, was tried for the murder of James Campbell in 1769 but was found shot in the head during the trial. It was rumored that he committed suicide."

Davenport? Claudia could hardly believe what she had read. Could it be a coincidence that Alex and Andrew were also named Davenport?

Her heart was racing. She slammed the book shut. Caera, she had to show this to Caera!

She raced to the front of the library to check the book out.

"That's an interesting book." The librarian said as she cast it under the scanner. "Do you have a book report to do?"

"No," Claudia said, shaking her head. "I just wanted to look up some family history."

"Campbell," the librarian said, looking over Claudia's library card. A crease formed between her dark brows. "You wouldn't know anything about the legend of the Campbell murders, would you?"

"My dad used to talk about that," Claudia said, thinking back, "but I guess I wasn't listening carefully enough."

The librarian smiled. "We used to tell ghost stories about it in my day." She said, shaking her head reminiscently.

"What kinds of stories?" Claudia asked, now curious.

"About the Campbell girl who was murdered in town a long time ago. The Campbell murders were the first ever to happen in this town, you know."

"Was the girl's name Emma?" Claudia asked, knowing that it was.

"Could be." The librarian shrugged. "But people from time back said the girl kept a diary. Rumor had it that the diary would tell who murdered the Campbells and why. Another popular myth is that her diary says what happened to the Campbell money. You see, the first Campbells who came here had a lot of money a long time ago, before the Revolutionary War. Then they lost it, no one knows how. Tales about Campbell treasure seemed to grow with every generation, until people from this area started moving away to the cities."

"I never knew that." Claudia said.

"You learn something new every day." The librarian laughed. "If you're living in Argyll House, you'll be distant relations of the Campbells who built it. I'm surprised you haven't gone out looking for the treasure yourself."

"No one ever found the diary?" Claudia asked.

"Not that I know of," the librarian answered.

"Thank you," Claudia said, and let the person behind her in to the counter. The librarian had given her a lot to think about, Claudia reflected as she left the building. In a few minutes, she had freed her bike from the rack and was cycling down the road.
Caera the Brave

School on Monday was terrible. There was a pop quiz in Math, which nearly everybody failed, and Mr. Sudge, more commonly known as "Mr. Smudge" (the name had stuck because whatever he wrote on the chalkboard with his right hand was somehow erased by his left sleeve), decided to give two extra assignments as a good dose of medicine. On her way to history, Claudia heard a familiar voice calling her name.

"Hey, Claudia!"

Claudia groaned. The last person she wanted to talk to right now was Emily Miles, but Emily paraded past and turned to face Claudia.

"Did you finish your Science Fair Project?" Emily asked, her eyes narrowed. Claudia wondered why the image of a boa constrictor suddenly came to mind.

"Why do you ask?" Claudia said, trying not to show her anxiety. Science Fair Project? How, how could she have forgotten? She never forgot these things! Horror of horrors--did this mean she'd fail science, after all of her hard work on the tests and homework, the things that really mattered?

"Well," Emily said smugly, "because I visited the science room this morning to turn in my project and I saw everyone's there except--" she paused in triumph, "except yours."

"That's nice, Emily." Claudia tried to shrug it off. "I guess you didn't look very hard." She turned away and entered the history room. On the way to her seat, she was getting desperate. "What am I going to do?" she sat thinking for a few minutes as everyone came in and took their seats.

Meanwhile, across the room, Caera stifled a yawn. History lectures from Mr. Hoffmeyer were dull. When would teachers ever realize that history would be so much more fun if they spent less time talking about "dates and periods" and more time teaching their students about what life had really been like for ordinary people living long ago? Caera wondered, her mind wandering. What had the people of the past thought about the time they lived in?

Anyway, who could ever remember dates, when they meant nothing just sitting there on a page by themselves? She didn't care except that she had to memorize them for the next history test, and she wouldn't care, not until Mr. Hoffmeyer started giving better lectures.

"And the Babylonian Empire fell around 1595 BC. The Trojan War took place around 1200 BC..." Mr. Hoffmeyer was saying.

"Mr. Hoffmeyer?" Caera interrupted.

"Yes?" he asked, turning around.

"Is it true that Julius Caesar had epilepsy?" she asked, thinking about a scene in the movie Cleopatra. Everyone in the room stared at her. Mr Hoffmeyer's bushy brows crooked into peaks.

"Well, I don't know for sure," Mr. Hoffmeyer admitted. "But yes, I think so." After that he turned back to his notes on the dates of the Pelopponesian War.

So far, he had only looked around at the class three times, and each time Caera had nodded thoughtfully before letting her gaze wander about the room. After a while, she started to read sections of her history book by herself, interesting parts Mr. Hoffmeyer had skipped in his lesson plan. Then, unexpectedly, she thought she heard Claudia's voice.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Hoffmeyer, but I think I'm going to throw up..." Claudia said.

Caera couldn't believe her ears.

What? she thought. Claudia hadn't been sick this morning. Why would she pretend to be sick? Oh, no! a horrible thought struck her. What if, what if Claudia had forgotten to finish her Science Fair Project?! That had to be it, she concluded. Claudia would never pretend to be sick otherwise.

"I was wondering if I could go to the clinic." Claudia coughed and tried to look ill. Everyone in the room was staring at her but Mr. Hoffmeyer, who was making a correction in his notes on the blackboard.

"If you're sick, you should go home." Mr. Hoffmeyer threw over his shoulder without turning around. It was just as well he didn't, because half of the class weren't writing any notes down. As Claudia hurried from the room, all eyes turned to Caera, as though she knew what was wrong with Claudia.

And lately at least, she had no idea.

* * * * *

That day in science, Caera had to explain to the teacher, Mrs. Johnson, why Claudia was absent. Such was the lot of a twin, she sighed. So far, everyone who was talking about Claudia's outburst in history seemed pretty sympathetic. Everyone except one person.

Caera couldn't possibly have anticipated that Emily Miles would remember the discussion she had had with Claudia earlier that day. While Mrs. Johnson was writing on the chalkboard, Emily turned around in her seat and began conducting her own investigation of the situation. Caera began sending thought messages to Mrs. Johnson to turn around.

"Did your sister really finish her project on time, or is she just playing sick so she won't have to turn it in today?" Somehow Caera knew from the smirk on Emily's face that Emily didn't believe Claudia was sick. Nevertheless, Caera loyally defended her sister.

"She looked sick to me."

"That so? Then why didn't she stay home this morning? If you ask me, she got sick just a little too suddenly."

"No one asked you, Emily." Caera thought darkly.

"Emily, would you care to share your conversation with the class?" Mrs. Johnson had turned around and was giving Emily a stern look. Hooray for Mrs. Johnson! Caera felt relieved.

Emily was silent.

"No?" Mrs. Johnson continued after a moment. "Well then young lady, you can serve detention tomorrow morning. Come by after class and I'll give you a slip for your parents to sign."

Emily nodded, then glared back at Caera when Mrs. Johnson returned to the chalkboard.

Caera tried to ignore Emily's hostility, but she just couldn't. Caera was good at imagining things and overlooking tricky little details when it suited her, but even Caera's powerful imagination couldn't imagine Emily away. Why couldn't time just hurry up and bring her to the end of the class? she wondered.

Caera sighed to herself, wishing life were as easy as it seemed to be in books, or at least as fun as it seemed to be in Half-Magic, her favorite Edward Eager book. In real life, she thought, you couldn't just magically make a villain disappear in a puff of smoke.

* * * * *

At the end of the day, Caera met Ana at her locker.

"Did you hear the announcements this morning?" Ana unsuccessfully tried to contain her excitement.

"No, why?"

"The camping trip is scheduled for a week from this Friday!"

"Really?" Caera and Claudia had been counting the days until the science survival expedition, but it had been postponed twice because of rain.

"Of course you mean survival expedition, Ana," she added as an afterthought. Caera could hardly wait to tell Claudia the good news.

"Oh, I forgot. I thought you liked hiking and camping, though."

"I do like camping, but you've got to use the right name. This isn't supposed to be fun, Ana. It's supposed to be scientific. You know—educational."

"You're not going to have fun?" Ana teased.

Caera just glared at her.

"Well, that's not the half of it," Ana continued, "Marie Summit is in my math class, and she says that Todd Miller likes me! Isn't that great? I've liked him for ages!"

"Yeah, that's great." Caera tried not to sound bored.

"Well then, I'd better not tell you what she said about you and Claudia, because I can see that you're not interested."

"What? I am, too! Ana Robinson, if you don't tell me, I'll be forced to tell the whole school that you like Todd Miller! I might even be forced to tell Marie Summit, though she probably already knows."

Everyone knew the true creative spirit of Marie Summit's gossiping genius. In only five short months since her family had moved to town from Los Angeles, she'd practically become a legend. The only problem was that whether or not she liked you could drastically affect your social life.

If Marie didn't like you, you could look forward to a miserable year filled with rumors and prank phone calls. It wasn't surprising that everybody was so nice to her. It was simply in their best interest. Marie knew everyone's dirty little secrets and used her knowledge to keep the school in line. Naturally, Ana preferred to tell Caera rather than have Marie Summit get any more gossip to spread around.

"Well, since you put it that way, she said that you, Claudia, Alex, and Andrew would be good for each other, since you both already come in matching pairs. Of course I knew how you and Claudia feel about them—"

"Of all the NERVE!" Caera couldn't imagine how anyone could even think that she and Claudia wanted to have anything to do with the Davenport twins. She thought that with all their arguing it would be blatantly obvious. Didn't everyone know that they both hated one another?

Apparently not everyone.

"By now she's probably spread the news around the whole school," Ana sighed.

"Well, thank you so much for your optimism, Ana. Now I know who to come to when I really need encouragement."

"Sure." Ana pretended not to notice the sarcasm.

"Well, let's get going." Caera said, shouldering her cheetah backpack. "If I'm not home by 3:30, I'll miss my favorite t.v. show." Caera only hoped that Marie would move on to newer and more exciting topics to gossip about and that the news about her and the Davenports would die down before Claudia was back in school. Maybe by then everything would be back to normal.

For now, she encouraged herself by remembering that Marie's numerous stories were so widely circulated and retold that it was even likely that Caera herself was no longer in the story. Anyway, she just wanted to go home and forget all about it. Ana seemed to agree. As Caera and Ana turned to leave, they saw Alex and Andrew coming down the hallway.

"Oh Caera, the secret's out!" Andrew yelled.

"Huh?" Caera said.

"Marie told me everything." Andrew shrugged.

"Told you what?" Caera demanded.

"How much you really care about me, darling." Andrew said with a laugh. (He was not wearing a watch). Alex was laughing hysterically behind his back. Before she could protest, they sauntered away. The Davenports always had to have the last word.

"Like I said, it's around the whole school." Ana had a knack for stating the obvious, Caera thought. "Don't worry, Caera. I'm sure by tomorrow no one'll remember anything about all this. Trust me." Ana tried to console her friend but was having a hard time suppressing a grin.

* * * * *

Claudia was fast asleep by the time that Caera got home. Ana's mother had dropped Ana and Caera off at the Campbells' house since the twins' mother had a meeting in Boston that afternoon. Mrs. Campbell's plane landed at three, so Caera figured they had a while by themselves, and Ana asked to stay until dinnertime. For once, her mother agreed to let her.

"Claudia! Claudia! Claaaddiiiaaaaa!" Get down here!" Claudia woke at the first call of her name and was running down the stairs before Caera had finished screaming.

"You can stop yelling, Caera. I'm coming!" Claudia hollered while still on the staircase. The heavy echo of her footfalls carried to the living room, where Claudia found Caera and Ana slumped on the couch, finishing off a plateful of chocolate chip cookies. Caera grabbed the last one just seconds before Ana took the plate and polished off the cookie crumbs.

"I'm sorry we didn't leave you anything, Claudia, but you know Mom doesn't like you loading up on junk food when you're sick. I was only acting in your best interest."

"How generous of you, Caera. Your kindness is overwhelming." Claudia said dryly.

Suddenly there was a noise outside, and Caera and Ana went out to see where it had come from. Claudia heard the back door slam and went to check in the cookie cupboard. It was then that she heard shouting outside.

"Honestly, Mrs. Johnson sent us to talk to you after the meeting this afternoon. Just ask her tomorrow." Claudia recognized the voice instantly.

"Why are the Davenport twins in our back yard?" she wondered aloud on her way to the door.

"What makes you think that I wanna help you, Alex?" Caera demanded.

"Shes' got a point there, Alex," Andrew observed. "After all, you don't know Caera the way I do." he challenged conspiratorially. "You'd better let me ask her."

"Oh! Hi, Claudia!" Caera cried as Claudia appeared beside her on the back lawn. "Maybe you can get these trespassers to vamoose." Caera pulled Claudia in front of her to use as her shield.

The Davenports were leading a group of six boys and one girl. Claudia groaned. That one girl was Marie Summit, gossiping legend. Obviously they'd brought a little extra insurance along with them. No one wanted to make a scene with Marie around. But what were they all doing in the back yard? Todd Miller, Alex and Andrew's best friend, was trying to appear inconspicuous as he stole glances in Ana's direction while George Stuart stood admiring his toes. Marie Summit was smiling, notepad and pencil in hand, wildly scribbling across the page.

"Look, it's like this..." Alex began, "You know the science survival trip that's coming up in a couple weeks?"

Claudia nodded.

"Well, the original place we'd planned on has flooded, and Mrs. Johnson asked us if we would look for the perfect camping spot, and according to this map," he pointed out a small, white, folded map booklet of the surrounding countryside, "the perfect spot is right here." (He pointed.) "We didn't realize the widest trail started on your land until we got here. We thought we could start from the road and go into the forest using some of the paths that are marked. It'd be perfect if we started from your place, that is, if you're parents don't mind. So, how about it?"

Now that Alex had brought it to her attention and the more that Claudia thought about it, she realized that the forest would be the perfect spot! Even she had never fully explored the woods, rocky hills, and the mountains beyond.

"Hey, Claudia." From his tone, Claudia suspected that Andrew had some sinister purpose in mind.

"What?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well, I just thought you were supposed to be sick. You don't look it."

"I am," Claudia insisted, "but when I heard shouting, I jumped from my bed to see if Caera was okay."

"Ah, sisterly devotion. Kind of makes you want to vomit." Andrew muttered, but Alex interrupted him.

"Well how about it?"

"Yeah, well, I guess it's okay. Oh this'll be great, I just know it!" Claudia was beaming.

"Great. Then I'll tell Mrs. Johnson the good news." Alex smiled. Marie Summit giggled as her pen flew across several pages.

The sound of a car coming up the driveway startled Claudia.

"Uh-oh, Claudia! Mom's home. You'd better hurry inside." Caera whispered. "She'll be mad if she finds you here." Claudia nodded and dashed inside. Caera watched as the Davenports' group got into Mrs. Stuart's mini-van and backed up, just as Mrs. Campbell was getting out of her car. They turned to open the door for her since her arms were full of bags of things she had purchased in Boston.

It took Claudia a few minutes to get to her room, put on a nightshirt, and crawl into bed, but she was "sleeping" when her mother came to check on her.

* * * * *

The flowers were blooming in spring over the hills and in the small town that had grown up along the coastline. Flower petals growing in clusters on the trees rained down on the land like pink snow in the bright afternoon breeze. The air was full of sounds: the ocean waves, the seagulls flying above the pier, a blacksmith hammering away on horseshoes in a nearby smithy.

What a beautiful day it was, this third of April, 1768!

Emma started running along the pier while her father arranged for Barney's shoes to be repaired with the journeyman blacksmith in a small shop. After a while, she gave up skipping about and returned to stand by the open carriage. The quick-eyed journeyman, Davey Smith, was no more than fourteen years old, but he nodded knowledgeably to her father's questions. When he spoke, it was in an English accent her father told her had been spoken in the poorer streets of London.

Why didn't Davey ever have time to play as she did? she wondered. Why did he have to grow up so fast? Davey looked but a boy, but he had already crossed the ocean with his family to come to the American colonies. The Smiths were craftspeople, not indentured servants or convicts or refugees like so many of the other American colonials were or had been in days past. Davey also knew horses, and the Smith family kept a stable behind the shop.

As her father finished talking to the lad, Davey's eyes momentarily shifted to her. His mouth crooked into a--was that a frown, though, and not a smile? She wondered, but she couldn't tell in time. Davey turned quickly and headed into the smithy, one side of the tie which bound his brown ponytail dangling down.

Did Davey truly dislike her? she wondered, upset by the thought. Maybe he disliked her because he was jealous of her family's wealth? She thought about how Davey saw her. Her shoes weren't the block-toed colonial type crafted out of wood by William Jones, the cobbler. They were fancy, high-heeled, and made of satin, and her low-necked dress had been hand sewn of thin blue silk and Flanders lace. The dress was worn over a whalebone corset, stays, and layers and layers of frilly petticoats.

He must have thought she led a carefree, easy life, but did Davey know how uncomfortable her corsets were, or how they pinched her, or how hard it was sometimes to breathe in them, much less play and frolic? Or did Davey dislike her, she wondered, because she could read and speak French and German, sing, paint, and play the pianoforte, dance the jigg and minuets, while he knew only the hard life of a poor laboring family and learned only to shoe horses and fashion keys all the day long?

Then she frowned with another thought.

Maybe Davey disliked her and her father just because they were Scots! Yes, that could have been it. For some reason, a lot of Colonials didn't like the Scots. After all, the English had been fighting the Scots for hundreds of years, and the two countries of England and Scotland hadn't united as one country until 1707. Not everyone in Scotland had been happy that their country was to be ruled by England under this new law, though. They had fought to try to regain their independence in what was called the Jacobite Rebellion.

The last conflict between the Scottish clans supporting the Scottish Prince, Bonnie Prince Charlie, against the English armies had ended in the battle of Culloden Field in Scotland in 1746, just over twenty years ago. And with its greater armies, England had won.

Maybe Davey didn't know about all of this, though. After all, he hadn't ever gone to school, she suddenly thought. He probably didn't have relatives, uncles and distant cousins who had fought and died in the Jacobite Rebellion, as she did. But he had to know that the English and Scots seldom got along, even though they had to live side by side when they came to the American Colonies.

There were other people in the Colonies, too, and they all had to try to forget their differences and get along. There were lots of Germans, Swedes, Dutch to the south and mostly in New York, Welsh, Irish, Africans in the Southern Colonies, and even French. And American natives, too, like the Iroquois, though she had never seen any. Some of the native peoples of America had taken sides with the French and some had sided with the English in the recent French and Indian Wars, which happened in the 1750's.

There were also large communities of Scotch-Irish in America who lived in the mountainous east, Scots who had lived in Ireland before coming to America. They were her people, people with names like MacDonald, Patterson, Murray, Douglas, and Ross.

But should they keep their traditions here in this America? She wondered. Why couldn't the Scots, or the Germans, or the Swedes, just blend in with the English Colonists? It was difficult to live together when everyone spoke a different language.

Emma didn't know what Davey thought about her, or how much he knew about the world. She was only twelve years old, but her father and uncles always talked about the problems facing the Colonials, even though most people in the Colonies only really knew and worried about their own town or region. Some Colonials were even saying now that the Colonies would be better off on their own, without English taxes to pay.

What would the Colonies do without English law and order, though? she wondered. What would happen if the American natives decided they didn't want the British Colonials in America and fought to take back their homeland? She didn't know.

Even though she was a girl and wasn't supposed to think about what was happening in the world, she often wondered what was going to happen to the American Colonies in the future.

Could the Colonies break away from English rule and live independently? It would be difficult, since most Colonial raw materials were taken back to Britain, where the highest quality factories and textile industries were. How could the Colonies survive on their own?

Of course, this was all just idle talk, she thought. The American Colonials couldn't separate themselves from the authority of the British crown!

Davey had gone inside, and Emma looked to her father. Her father seemed upset about something, but she couldn't imagine what was bothering him. Was he worried about money? she wondered. How expensive could it be to have Barney re-shoed? She decided he couldn't be worried about that. After all, hadn't her father come to America with vast wealth from Argyll?

She turned away and looked back to the pier.

The sky suddenly darkened, and she was alone. She turned around, but there was no sign of her father, or of Davey, and the mists were circling around her. She was alone.

Where had her father gone? Why wasn't he there? And why had the chill of a winter's evening replaced the warm spring day?

She screamed, but no one heard her. She started running, but there was nowhere to go.

I'm not ready to die! Emma thought, in rising fear. I want to see the future! I want to know what will happen to my home!

When the hands closed about her throat, she found she couldn't scream.

Why are you taking this life from me? she thought in despair. I will not die quietly. I will not rest!

Help me, Caera—

Caera awoke with a start, her heart racing. It was the middle of the night. She bolted out the door and into Claudia's room.

"What's wrong?" Claudia asked in a sleepy voice.

Caera stared at her, blinking. "Nothing." She whispered frightfully. "Can I sleep in here?"

"I suppose." Claudia said through a yawn, pulling back the covers. Caera and Claudia had slept in the same room, in the same bed, until they were ten years old. Then, when they were ten, each had insisted on separate bedrooms. But sometimes, just sometimes, each of them wished they still shared the same room, especially at night when they still got scared.

Caera was so glad she had Claudia as she crept in beside her sister and fell asleep.

* * * * *

I just can't believe it, Caera thought. But it was true! It was all true! At the beginning of lunch, she'd gone to the school library, just to prove to herself that last night's dream had meant nothing.

But there really had been a battle of Culloden Field fought between the English and the Scots, and it really had taken place in 1746! There really had been a Bonnie Prince Charlie, and there really had been Germans, English, Dutch, and other people living in the places she had dreamed about.

Her dream had been real.

Caera just couldn't believe it! And if she couldn't believe it, who was ever going to believe her?

Caera was standing at the end of the lunchline in the school cafeteria, but she was thinking about the past her dream had taken her to. It had all seemed so real, and she had understood the strange aspects of daily life from two hundred years ago, things like how horses got shoed, when she had never seen a real live horse in her life!

Caera groaned as two familiar figures approached her in the present.

Caera risked a quick glance around the room and spied Marie Summit chewing on a hamburger in the far left corner. She sighed and turned around, hoping to avoid the Davenport twins. Unfortunately, they got at the end of the line right behind her.

"Hey, Claudia, you've made a quick recovery." Andrew smirked.

"Go choke on a straw." Caera muttered.

"What was that?" Andrew cupped his ear and leaned closer.

"I said, 'I'm Caera'."

"Oh well, same difference." Alex challenged. The line moved up.

"Hey, kid, d'ya want mashed potatoes or French fries? The lunchlady had an upturned scooper of mashed potatoes in her hand and was dripping it all over the counter. Chewing a piece of gum and impatiently tapping her foot on the cafeteria's linoleum floor, she grumbled something unintelligible. Caera swallowed hard.

"Um, I'll take French fries." Caera said. The cafeteria lady's cold, steely eyes narrowed as she gave Caera a dirty look, dropping the mashed potato scooper and slopping some fries onto her tray. Caera turned to Alex and Andrew. "Why don't you guys just go somewhere else and stay there?"

"Hey, we're getting some lunch just like everyone else, aren't we, Andrew?" Alex winked at his brother and Andrew nodded.

"Oh, sure, yeah, right." Caera oozed sarcasm as she approached the end of the lunchline and got out her wallet.

"Hey, wait! Don't go, Caera. I've gotta talk to you about the camping trip." Alex moved past his brother and grabbed some vanilla pudding.

"Hey, I was the one who wanted to talk to her about the trip, Alex--uh, I mean--" Andrew changed the tone of his voice to a sneer. "Yeah, Caera, don't run away!" Andrew shoved past Alex and leaned his leg out to stop Caera from leaving. Unfortunately, Caera didn't see it and tripped.

Before she regained her balance, French fries had landed all over her dress and were strewn across the floor. Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked down at the stains all over the front of her new dress. When Andrew realized what he had done, he was sorry and wanted to say so, but since he knew that she wouldn't want to hear anything he might have to say, he paid for his lunch and walked away. Alex was apologizing.

"He didn't mean it. If you want, I can walk you to the office and we can call your mom."

"I don't need any of your help!" Caera screamed, tears rolling down her face. She dropped her tray, turned, and ran down the hall.

* * * * *

When the family car pulled into the driveway, Claudia was in the kitchen getting some lunch, a chicken sandwich with horseradish and lettuce. After her mother had left to pick up Caera so that she could change her clothes, she had decided to make herself a submarine chicken sandwich—her culinary favorite. The table was also spread with other goodies: a bowl of strawberries and cream, cheddar cheese potato chips, three or four Oreo cookies on a plate, homemade rice krispie treats, and more. Claudia had just taken an enormous bite of her sandwich when Caera walked in, her obvious lack of cheer spoiling Claudia's festive mood.

"Hi, Caera. Wanna share my lunch with me?" Claudia began, although it sounded more like, "Hi, Cawah. Wahwah fhare my wunfh wif me?" Caera didn't answer. She slowly trudged upstairs. Four or five minutes later, she came down wearing a blue sundress, her stained yellow one tucked under one arm. She walked past the kitchen where Claudia was just finishing off the strawberries and cream and into the washroom to try to get the stains off her dress. When she re-entered the kitchen, Claudia's cheesy fingers had just disappeared into the sack of potato chips. Caera slumped down into the chair next to Claudia and began munching on a cookie for comfort. It didn't seem to help much.

"Claudia—"

"Yes?"

Caera paused, looking at Claudia as though she had a big secret inside just eating her up.

"Nothing, never mind." Caera said at last.

Claudia shrugged, trying to get rid of the feeling that Caera was excluding her from something important.

"Well, I'm full." Claudia announced contentedly before wiping the cream mustache off her mouth. She began putting the leftovers away, but she decided to leave a rice krispie bar and a few cookies out for Caera, who finished them slowly and quietly for once. After checking on her dress to make sure that the stains were gone, Caera grabbed her books and got into her mother's car to go back to school. At the sound of the car pulling away from the driveway, Claudia went back upstairs to read her book.

* * * * *

Caera was in a much better mood returning home for the second time that day. Although the stream of rumors concerning her and her sister and the Davenport twins had become a flood, it was only a matter of time until all the talk died down. Anyway, at least now the gossip was taking a new course, thanks to the latest juicy tidbit. Shrewd eyes, two of them Marie Summit's, had paid attention to the new social developments during lunch that day and had seen Caera's little accident at the hands, or feet, of Andrew Davenport.

Word had circulated through the building that they were having a fight, so instead of hearing about their "relationship", people were asking Caera knowing questions like, "Having some problems with anyone lately? Anyone I know?", while visibly winking at her. Ellison Davis used the excuse that a speck of dust was in her eye when asked what her problem was, while she giggled knowingly to her friends.

Although the whispers and giggles and pointing were particularly annoying, Caera reveled in the thought that Alex and Andrew were enduring the same cruelty from all the boys in the seventh grade. Ha! Let 'em get what they deserved.

As wonderful as this was, Caera had more important things to worry about. Preparations had to be made for the survival trip. George Stuart's mother had signed up to drive the group to the Campbells' house in her mini-van (A project which would take many trips if no one else volunteered transportation) and had been up to the school during science class to discuss everything with Mrs. Johnson.

Caera was amazed at how such an outgoing, bubbly person could have such a shy, reclusive, unhappy child. The woman had a wide smile on her face constantly, as if it were cut out of construction paper and pasted on with super glue. Maybe things would go reasonably well, if Mrs. Stuart didn't drive everybody crazy on the way over.

Even then, it'd still be worth it to go. They'd get to miss Friday from school and start the hike at seven o' clock in the morning. Mrs. Johnson had left it up to Caera to make a list of everything that each person would need to pack for themselves, as well as a list of certain foods and other assorted items that people would sign up to bring.

Claudia could help, too, if she was well enough. (Ha ha!) Caera knew it'd be fun. The twins had gone hiking and camping every year since they were old enough to walk, so deciding what to take was the first and easiest part of the routine to them. Caera knew she'd have to dig out her edible plants guide with its tattered, worn cover yet again. She couldn't wait to talk to Claudia about the trip. She knew Claudia'd have a great time after being cooped up inside for a few days.

No sooner than the car had pulled up into the driveway, Caera had jumped out and went running into the house, scrambling up the stairs to Claudia's room. "Claudia! Guess what!" she yelled while pounding her fists on the door. "Mrs. Johnson is letting me make a list for the survival trip saying what everyone has to bring, and she says that you can help, too, if—"

Caera stopped short as the door opened and Claudia emerged, white-faced. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"For a minute there, Caera, I could have sworn I did." Claudia said. "Look at this." Claudia walked over to the windowsill and picked up a book from where it lay and began to thumb through it. In a moment, she walked back to where her sister sat on the edge of the bed and showed her a picture, a portrait of a girl in a silk blue dress. The name plate read "Emma Campbell". Caera gasped.

She was looking at a portrait of herself.
An Unexpected Message

Second period math was something Claudia would have gladly missed on the first day back in school. The class was working on geometry proofs, which of themselves weren't so bad, except that the teacher made them draw little t-shaped tables and label them, an obvious waste of time. Claudia groaned as she received her make-up assignments for the days she had been sick, wondering if a week's free time would be enough to finish them.

History, however, provided a great deal of amusement as the sounding of a familiar bell meant that the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-too-intelligent members of the office staff had decided that it was time for a fire drill. Claudia looked for her sister as all of the students filed out of the classroom and into the hallway.

There were hordes of people from all over the school exiting through the double doors, and almost all of them seemed to be chattering about something or other, despite the efforts of the teachers to quiet them down and regain some semblance of order. This provided a little time for everyone to hear the latest school gossip. Interestingly, everybody had forgotten about the lunchroom incident of the other day, and recent talk had turned to the preparations for the survival trip. This included new rumors that Erica Miles, Emily's older sister, had volunteered to help chaperone one of the groups.

Erica was a sophomore at the high school. Erica and Emily were as different as night and day, especially in their personalities. Where Emily was conniving, manipulative, and vain, Erica was sweet, kind, and outgoing. It came as no surprise to Claudia that Ana's elder brother Jason, also in the tenth grade and a chestnut brown-haired heartthrob to boot, had signed up. Rumor had it that he had a crush on Erica.

After walking around the assembled student population, Claudia managed to learn that Christopher Summit was coming along for the ride, much to Marie's distress.

Christopher was the oldest chaperone to be going on the trip aside from Mr. Gordon, the sixth grade science teacher, and in his senior year Chris stood a towering six foot four.

For some reason, Marie never went anywhere with her brother if she could help it (which didn't bother Chris because when they were together she did all the talking), but anyone could tell that they were related. Both of them had piercing emerald eyes and wavy brown hair, though Chris had outgrown the light brown freckles that tormented Marie.

Eventually Claudia spotted Caera and Ana in the crowd. Caera was waving a hand in the air and mouthing, "Moooviittt!" Claudia ran over to them, panting by the time she reached them.

"I'm so excited, you guys," Ana began at twice her normal speed, which was fast enough to begin with. "Maybe I can spend the night this Friday and you can tell me all about your dreams and then we can all search for clues--"

"What?" Suddenly Claudia understood what Ana was saying, and she turned to give Caera a dirty look. Caera fidgeted nervously.

"Well, you know, Claudia, friends don't keep secrets from one another. Besides, I figured that it'd be easier if Ana knew. And it's so mysterious, the murder of Emma Campbell and the story of the lost Campbell treasure. You know Ana loves mysteries."

Claudia couldn't believe it. She and Caera had only just talked about their nightmares yesterday, and already Caera had blabbed! Of course she knew they would have told Ana sooner or later. Actually, Claudia was more upset that she hadn't been there when Ana found out.

"Let's not say anything about it at school, though," Claudia whispered glancing carefully about. "And we don't have to rush into a silly treasure hunt or anything. Emma Campbell's diary has been missing for two hundred years, you know."

"Yeah, but it would still be fun to have Ana over, right Ana?" Caera said. Ana nodded.

"We could talk about the survival trip. You're supposed to be one of the group leaders and help out Mr. Gordon, aren't you, Caera?"

Caera nodded. "So is Claudia. Aren't we always lumped together like a package deal?" Caera sighed. Perhaps she would have been happier if Mrs. Johnson had singled her out.

"What?" Claudia was surprised.

"Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention it." Caera said calmly. "Mrs. Johnson wants you to meet her after school today to talk about it."

Mr. Hoffmeyer called attention to the classes just then and announced that the fire drill had been successfully completed in less than two minutes. He went on to explain that if it had been a real fire, such speed in exiting would have saved the lives of every student and that there were additional exits in case some were blocked by fire. Claudia coughed loudly as she passed the teaching staff and filed into the building.

* * * * *

Ana came to sleep over that Friday night. Claudia and Caera greeted her at their front door, and then Claudia ran upstairs to put Ana's things away in the guest room, while Caera took Ana to the library to discuss their plans for the night.

By the time that Claudia arrived in the library, Caera was already showing Ana the pages that Claudia had amassed. Ana began reading as Claudia sat down in a Queen Anne chair, and it was a good fifteen minutes before she was finished. Claudia looked up to see Ana's openmouthed expression when she was done.

"Wow, you guys! That sure is some story! You say you've both been dreaming about Emma Campbell's murder?"

"That's not all," Claudia said. "Just before Caera and I talked to each other about the mystery, I was sitting upstairs by myself, when I thought I a face in the windowpane."

"You're kidding." Ana said, reading the twins' faces to see if this was a joke.

"I wish I was." Claudia said seriously.

"Well, are you sure it wasn't just in your imagination?" Ana asked. Her eyes had grown moon-wide. "Maybe it was your own reflection in the glass."

"That's just what I said!" Caera interjected. Then she looked to Claudia, sensing what her sister was going to say.

"You guys are probably right." Claudia admitted reluctantly. "Whatever it was, I only saw it for a second, and then Caera walked in."

"Wow, this is just like those weird stories you read in books or see in the movies!" Ana cried in thrilled tones. "I can't believe someone was actually murdered in this house."

"Neither can we. It's kind of creepy." Caera said.

"Yeah," Ana agreed with delight. "Hey, what if Mr. Campbell's ghost is listening to us right now!"

Just as she said this, the door suddenly creaked open. All three girls screamed like blue blazes.

"Oh no, the ghost is after us!" Ana yelled and dove behind the sofa.

"Come on, you guys, it's only Dad." Caera said, laughing, and pulled Ana from behind the couch. Then she sighed at Claudia's quivering form in the chair.

"Gosh, Ana, you nearly gave me a heart attack." Claudia said, relieved. "What's the matter, Dad?" she asked, turning to her father, who was watching the situation with secret amusement.

"I just wanted to tell you girls that your mother went up to the school today to talk to Mrs. Johnson about holding the school survival trip on our land." Her father said. "The school wants all the equipment by Sunday afternoon."

"Okay," Caera chirped.

"Your mother's going to deliver it to Mrs. Johnson's house for inspection," Mr. Campbell explained, "and she needs you girls to get out all the sleeping bags, fishing gear, and anything else you can find by tomorrow. Maybe Ana can help you."

"Yeah," Ana said. "But I was also kinda wondering if you guys had an extra sleeping bag that I could borrow. I don't want Mrs. Johnson to know that I'm unprepared. And no one is going to find out that I have a cartoon sleeping bag."

"Oh, sure, Ana." Caera said. "Dad, where did we put the camping stuff last year? I looked yesterday, but I couldn't find any of it anywhere."

"I'm not sure, but it might be in the attic. Did you look there?"

"No." Caera paused for a moment, unsure of what she was about to ask. "Dad, have you ever heard anything about a lost Campbell treasure?"

"Well, yes, actually," he laughed, folding his arms across his chest. "When I was a little boy, my friends and I searched for it. Most people have heard of the lost Campbell treasure, but it's something of a myth, so don't get your hopes up about finding it." Then he wished them "Good night".

Claudia and Caera turned to Ana as soon as their father had left the room.

"Do you guys wanna look for the stuff in the attic now?" Claudia asked.

"Yes!" Caera and Ana exclaimed.

* * * * *

"Gee, this attic could sure use a spring cleaning." Caera coughed and waved her hand in the air to clear the dust. Beside her, Claudia was shuffling through a stack of old newspapers.

"July fourth, eighteen seventy-two. Whew! When was the last time anyone was up here?

"Well, dad had the place reinsulated about six years ago."

"It was a rhetorical question, Caera."

"Oh." Caera shrugged sheepishly before turning to help Ana, who was carrying several sleeping bags that she had found to throw in a heap beside the attic door. The twins had six sleeping bags, three mummies (special camper's sleeping bags) and three barrel sleeping bags also especially made for camping. As Mrs. Johnson had said, every little contribution helped. Ana dropped the last few sleeping bags and ran over to Claudia.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Well, we need to find a little edible plants guide and fishing gear for starters," Claudia began. "And we need headlamps, some fishing poles and a net, and all the multi-day backpacks we can get." Claudia had already opened one box and was strewing its contents all around her.

"Oh. Well, can't we look in these wooden boxes?" Ana gestured to several large crates piled on top of one another in the corner where she was standing.

"Nah, I don't know what those are. Besides, Caera and I put the equipment away last time, so they won't be in there."

"Well how 'bout the trunk?" Ana pointed to a large black trunk behind Caera. It was made of cast iron.

"No, Grandpa said he lost the key for that trunk years ago."

"I miss your grandpa," Ana said sadly. "He was kooky but a lot of fun."

"Yeah," Claudia agreed. "I remember he had lot of strange collections and papers lying all over the place. Dad got rid of most of it when Grandpa died. He keeps talking about having that trunk opened to see what Grandpa kept in there, but he's too busy to do it."

"Plus it weighs a ton!" Ana observed, trying to budge it just an inch.

Claudia moved on to a cardboard box full of tools. Ana walked back to the crates. The ones on top weren't as heavy as the others but were still too weighty to move; nevertheless, Ana wanted to get one down and try to pry it open.

While Caera and Claudia searched for equipment, she rocked it backwards and forwards to use some of the force of its weight to help get it down. Unfortunately, her hand slipped from it, and it landed on the attic floor with a crash. Caera and Claudia ran over in time to see bits and pieces of broken wood and a pile of old clothes.

"Ana, are you okay?" Claera helped her up.

Meanwhile Claudia was inspecting the crate's contents.

"Look, you guys! I don't believe it!" She held up a dress that was at least a hundred years old. Ana squealed with delight and picked out another, a satin ball gown that at one time must have been deep rose-colored but was now a faded pink. The creases in it seemed almost permanent; Claudia guessed that the clothes had been folded and put away for storage and were eventually forgotten. Caera lost no time in joining them and selected an emerald green dress trimmed in lace that looked elegant despite its age.

"Wow, let's try these on!"

"First you've got to look for one that's your size, Caera, or you'll be swimming in it," Claudia reminded her sarcastically.

Caera spared a moment to shoot her a dirty look, then grabbed at the pile. Ana and Claudia laughed and started searching for the best dress, which looked like it was going to be the emerald one that Caera had found. Claudia spied a blue dress at the bottom of the pile and lifted it out, going to the other side of the room to try it on.

"Look, it's my size!" Caera heard her and narrowed her eyes before rummaging through the crate some more, but Ana had noticed something that had been lying underneath Claudia's dress. She reached for an old, brown leather book and opened it carefully.

"Hey, you guys! I think I found something!" Caera was still absorbed in her ransacking, but Claudia shouted from the other side of the room.

"Well, bring it over and lemme see it!" Ana ran to Claudia as quickly as she could in the dim light, accidentally tripping over one of the sleeping bags that was lying around. The book hurtled through the air and landed at Claudia's feet, and she bent over to pick it up. "This has got to be the oldest book I've ever seen." Claudia held the pages in one hand and the cover in the other then flipped through the pages to see what the book was about. "Wow, a journal!"

"It can't be!" Caera was now behind her sister and was trying to get a look at the book.

"No, it's not Emma's diary," Claudia said quickly, in case her sister got too excited. "Just an old rhyming book from the looks of it," she added, leafing through it.

"How boring!" Caera pronounced.

"Hey, neat! This book was printed in the 1750's!" Claudia said.

"Really?" Caera asked, inching closer.

"Oh wow!" Claudia exclaimed.

"What?" Caera and Ana turned their attention back to her.

"One of the rhymes has been circled."

"Huh?" Caera said, her nose wrinkling. "Which one?"

"It says, 'Steal not this Booke, for if You Do, the Devil will be after You', but someone has crossed out 'this' and marked in 'my'."

"Oh my gosh," Ana blurted suddenly, after a moment of consideration. "You don't suppose—"

"Emma did it?" Caera finished, her face ashen.

"I think I've had enough of the attic, don't you?" Ana interrupted in frightened tones. She looked as though she were ready to bolt down the stairs. Her fear spread contagiously to the twins.

"I have, too," Caera said.

"Let's get Dad to bring this stuff down." Claudia added.

They all nodded, dropped the dresses, and ran down the stairs.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, Mr. Campbell was in the kitchen removing the lids from the crates, which were now resting on newspapers so as not to damage the linoleum floor. Mrs. Campbell was still breathless over the discovery of the old clothes.

"Mom, can't we get someone to restore them? You know, clean them and dye them, repair the tears and stuff?" Caera was whining her best and looking as mournful as she could.

"Honey, that would take a lot of money, and we just don't have it right now. Your father's going to have to build a new fence this summer and the roof needs re-done as it is. Besides, we just fixed up the guest room, and money doesn't grow on trees you know."

"But mom—"

"Caera, I didn't say we wouldn't do it, but you'll have to wait until I can fit it in the budget."

"Mom, you could fix them up for our Christmas present!" Claudia suggested, still in the blue dress she'd found.

"Well, I'll think about it." A moment later Mr. Campbell called them over to inspect the contents of the other three crates. The smallest one was packed with paper to protect the Singer sewing machine inside it. Another was filled with an assortment of antiquated items--old shoes, silver mirrors (which Caera insisted were junk because she could barely see herself in them), a set of china dishes that were chipped and cracked in places, and other historical oddities.

Caera guessed the contents of the largest crate when her father turned around in a bowler hat and pretended to be Charlie Chaplin. Just as she thought, it contained relics of men's clothing.

"Where did these crates come from?" Ana wanted to know.

"Actually, I don't know." Mr. Campbell said. "Your grandfather had a lot of old junk lying around that he'd never get rid of."

"Well, Dad, aren't you glad we finally opened them?" Caera teased. Mr. Campbell laughed and said "yes" before going to search for mothballs to keep the clothes fresh.

"You girls had better go collect the camping equipment because I've got to take it to Mrs. Johnson's tomorrow morning," Mrs. Campbell suggested before going to make room in the storage room for the clothes. The three girls slowly trudged upstairs to Claudia's room.

Fifteen minutes later the girls were sitting on the edge of Claudia's bed. Caera got up and hid the old book in Claudia's bottom drawer—a place where she was sure that nothing was ever seen again.

"What does the message mean?" Ana looked dumbfounded.

"I honestly don't know." Claudia admitted. "Why do you suppose we found it now of all times, just after we started dreaming about Emma?"

"Maybe we're supposed to find whoever stole Emma's diary," Caera suggested.

"That's it!" Claudia cried. "It has to be. Emma's murderer must have stolen her diary to try to find the Campbell treasure, only he couldn't find it. And whoever stole it may have given it to someone, to family or relations, or else hidden it."

"Or else he lost it." Ana suggested.

"Or else he lost it." Claudia agreed.

"Do you think we're meant to find it, Claudia?" Caera wondered. "Do you think that's why we've been having these terrible nightmares about Emma?"

"Yes, I do," Claudia said after a moment. "And I don't think they'll stop until we do find Emma Campbell's diary."

"But we just found her rhyming book. Maybe that's enough to lead us in the right direction—"

"No, it's not much to go on." Claudia said, in a sober way. "It's just a sign that Emma isn't finished with us yet," she added. "And that she's getting bold enough to interfere in our active lives, not just in our dreams."

"And that means her ghost might really be here in this house." Caera concluded.

Claudia and Ana stared at her, terrified.

And of course, they didn't dare sleep that night.

* * * * *

Claudia was glad when church was over that Sunday. She was still tired from lack of sleep Friday night, though thankfully there had been no sign of the ghost of Emma Campbell in their house. Her heavy cotton dress felt hot and itchy, and on top of that, she could see Alex and Andrew Davenport coming toward her in the hall with their parents. Mrs. Davenport and Mrs. Campbell had become a bit too chummy to Claudia's liking in the past couple weeks as they organized and made arrangements together to help Mrs. Johnson.

"The heater must be working in overdrive," Claudia decided when on better inspection of the Davenport party of four, she saw Alex and Andrew sweating in identical gray suits.

Almost immediately Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Davenport pulled together like magnets of opposite force and began conversing, ignoring their husbands and children who were helplessly trying to get a grasp of the situation. There was an uncomfortable silence between the children, who knew they couldn't very well insult each other in church or in the presence of their parents, while Mr. Davenport and Mr. Campbell stood there, fidgeting. Finally, Caera's father said,

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" and the two men swaggered over to the lunch table. The church was hosting a biannual Fellowship lunch, so all four parents entered the Fellowship Hall, leaving their children amongst a crowd of thirty or forty people shoving and trying to get in to eat before all the best food was gone. Of course, they were much too polite to actually push, but they were smiling with gritted teeth as they edged their way in front of their neighbors. Claudia could see both mothers busily chatting as they sat down at a dining table.

In the next moment, much to Caera and Claudia's delight and surprise, Ana appeared from behind a large elderly man, interrupting before Andrew could verbalize any of his daily put-downs. Alex shoved past his brother and marched up to Claudia, genuinely smiling.

"Mrs. Johnson told me to thank you for donating so much stuff for the survival trip," he began, actually quite decently. "She said she knew you didn't have to, and that it was really very nice of you to help her out like this." Caera wondered why he was almost singularly addressing Claudia. After all, she had done most of the work while Claudia was "sick". She might as well not exist as far as Alex was concerned.

Andrew was silently gagging behind his back.

"We're having a meeting this Thursday afternoon in the science department, and we need you and Caera to be there. Mrs. Johnson's calling a meeting to organize everyone into groups, and she wants to hear your ideas." For a moment, Claudia thought that he might not be such a bad guy after all. Apparently Caera was thinking the same thing, too, because she nudged Ana's shoulder with her elbow and raised her eyebrows. At least Claudia hoped that was what she was thinking.

Ana sighed. She knew people who fought and hated each other when they were young usually wound up getting married or something like that. Either that or they actually did end up killing one another.

"Sure, O.K." Claudia smiled. "We'll be there." As Alex turned to leave, Andrew caught his arm and whispered,

"What's the matter with you? Do you have some wires loose or something?" Actually, Andrew was angry with himself for not having the courage to talk and be friendly himself. He was just as excited as everyone else about the survival trip.

Alex yanked his arm back away and said, "Of course not. I'm fine. All I wanted to do was to relay Mrs. Johnson's message." He could see that Andrew didn't believe him. But then again, he wasn't sure if he believed himself, either.

Rained Out

Thursday morning came, cold and rainy, and the meeting in Mrs. Johnson's science room after school went well, without a hiccup, except when Marie Summit, there to document the meeting, began to fidget and make noise with her pocket tape recorder that had gotten wet and refused to work. Marie was near tears when she asked Mrs. Johnson to examine it, saying how much she would need it that week-end. After a few minutes of tinkering, Mrs. Johnson managed to get the thing working again, much to Marie's relief.

All the equipment had been organized and loaded into Mrs. Stuart's van for the next morning, except for the few things that would be collected at the Campbell's house before the great expedition could begin. Everyone was to meet at school at 6:00 (those that needed transportation, anyway) and those who were not riding in the Stuart's van, which actually turned out to be nearly everyone considering the amount of stuff she was taking, came in Mrs. Johnson's van or the school bus.

It was six thirty Friday morning when hordes of students began arriving at the Campbell house to begin the survival trip. The young sixth grade science teacher, Mr. Gordon was the overall group leader and guide, but there were also five group captains who had been or were junior or senior nature scouts: Caera, Claudia, Jason Robinson, David Stuart, and Christopher Summit.

Caera strode forward like a Native American guide leading a group of European explorers and she paused dramatically to breathe in the misty morning air. The day was warm and seemed to threaten nothing but sunshine.

"Boy, there is just nothing like the good old outdoors!" Caera thought as she climbed up a slope in the pathway and stopped at the summit of a small hill. Caera had a walking stick to aid her, and she leaned against it while she waited for the others to come.

The narrow pathway was only wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. Tall oak and other deciduous trees lined it, and jagged rocks jutted from the black soil. It was dark and cool, mossy, with lots of undergrowth the insects probably just loved, Caera thought. Occasionally, the path rose as it met small hills and rises on the forest floor, yet much of the land was flat and easy to cover.

Caera tried to ignore the fact that Emily Miles and the Davenports were in her group, and she distanced herself from them as much as possible. She didn't know who to pity more--herself or Claudia, who had Marie Summit following her around. Honestly, it seemed as though Mrs. Johnson had a pretty warped sense of humor. Worst of all, Ana was stuck near the back of the party in Jason Robinson's group.

Everything had been O.K. until Andrew had tugged onto Caera's backpack, adding at least twenty pounds onto her load. Caera was so excited to finally be going that she hadn't noticed until five minutes later, when she heard snickering and heavy breathing coming from directly behind her. When Caera stopped abruptly, Andrew slammed into her.

"Hey, watch it!" she cried, turning around.

Andrew just shrugged and snickered again when she turned back around. Caera shook herself off and then pointed to several bushes lining the clearing. She had her guide of edible plants and berries book open.

"Hey, wow! Blackberries!" Alex shouted before she could say anything, and he and Andrew began pulling the choicest fruit from each bush, hardly glancing at each as they shoved one after another into their greedy mouths. Nearly everyone took a moment to enjoy the berries.

Emily Miles was the only person standing far away from all the others.

Apparently, she considered herself far too delicate to go grubbing about in the bushes, until her stomach, unused to all the exercise, began to growl. After that, it was only a matter of time before Emily began complaining that Alex and Andrew were eating all of the berries and how unfair the whole situation was and shouldn't they wash them off before they ate them and why wasn't anyone listening to her?

Meannwhile, Caera was more annoyed with Alex and Andrew for being so selfish.

A half an hour later, Andrew developed a slight stomach ache, which Caera put down to too many unripe berries, and this made her irritable around the Davenports. Andrew complained of how difficult it was to walk for at least an hour.

Several hours later, both boys were feeling better, and Alex secretly decided to scout ahead a few hundred feet, even though Mr. Gordon had told everyone not to wander too far off.

Alex walked ahead briskly, hoping in particular to find some beetles to put down Caera's or Emily's backpack. Before him, the trail turned sharply to the right around the bottom of the slope of a rocky hill, but in a minute of following the path, he could see that further along it straightened out again. Instead of continuing along, he stopped.

In an instant, the hill had captured his interest. It seemed as though it were watching him. He wondered how many people throughout the years it had seen pass beneath it. After a moment, he felt drawn toward it to take a closer look.

The hill was blanketed with fallen leaves--a carpet of bright reds, yellows, and oranges with tufts of dead grass poking through that would make it too slippery. Fifteen minutes later, he had come several hundred yards nearer. Something or someone seemed to be leading him farther and farther away from where he had left the path and where he knew that the group must have reached already, yet just as he considered turning back, he came upon a cave. Its mouth reminded him of a trap door, and an eerie wind whistled a sound close to a welcome in his ears. More curious than afraid, he crept forward silently into the darkness... and fell.

* * * * *

Mr. Gordon's and Caera's survival parties had split up to catch lunch two minutes after the path had turned. They had stopped near a small river, so it was only natural for everyone to have a go at catching fish. Emily Miles objected to the thought of having to handle anything slimy, but Caera insisted that she had to do her share to prepare lunch. Honestly, she wondered why Emily had signed up to come at all—Emily certainly wouldn't survive if left to her own devices—except that she had her suspicions that where Erica Miles spurned all of Jason Robinson's efforts to be friendly, her little sister would settle for his acknowledging her existence.

Still, she had to pull her weight like everyone else, so Caera set her to the task of building a fire. Emily grumbled and got out an apron to pin over her new pink hiking outfit to protect herself from getting dirty.

When the two parties joined again, Mr. Gordon realized that Alex Davenport was nowhere to be found. And the fact that his own twin Andrew didn't know where he was was a really bad sign.

Andrew volunteered to walk back to Jason's group still behind them on the trail to see if Alex was with them. Mr. Gordon decided that his and Claudia's group would continue on the trail, while Caera's group stayed by the river to wait for Jason and the others.

Caera agreed reluctantly, then turned her attention to her group to survey their preparations once the other groups had gone. Emily was arranging the wood that Jessica Ford had gathered and dropped off before she left to get some more into little piles to ignite. George Stuart helped her to start the fires because his allergies prevented him from handling fish. In a minute, Caera had moved to the riverbank to instruct the others in how to use their fishing poles if they didn't know already and to remind them to be quiet so as not to scare the fish. As it was, most people were too tired and hungry to want to talk, or, she imagined, didn't want to scare the fish.

Soon Caera's group found her advice rewarding, when they drew their first fish from the water in silent excitement. Three quarters of an hour later, there was plenty for everyone, at least for non-vegetarians who liked fish, and the group started to haul their prizes over near the now blazing (and smoking) fires to be cleaned and cooked.

All of a sudden, Andrew tore through the woods and sprinted over to them on the muddy bank. Caera sighed in exasperation as she watched him skid to the edge of the water and fall in with all of his clothes on. Luckily, the current was much slower than in the spring, or he might have been swept away. Luckily also that Caera knew what to do when the open-mouthed, expressionless stares of her classmates told her that left to them he would drown.

As quickly as she could, she tied a rope around a life preserver that she had a large, reluctant eighth grade boy carry instead of other supplies and then tied a rope around an enormous rock on the riverbank. Yelling for the others to secure the rope, she braced herself and jumped into the icy water. Andrew was swallowing gallons of water when Caera swam over to him and put the life preserver over his head. A lifetime's worth of swimming lessons that Caera never thought would pay off allowed her to swim against the current with relative ease; she was a strong swimmer and helped the others to pull him in to safety.

Andrew had never appeared more scared in his life than when he was fished out of the water, his usual jauntiness having turned into panic. Both of their lips were blue, and Caera wondered if Andrew was regretting never learning how to swim. She didn't pause long, however--getting a dry towel was the most important thing to her at that moment.

During Andrew's rescue, Todd Miller had run back to the camp and rummaged through the supplies for two dry towels, and he was now by the river handing them to Caera and Andrew. It wasn't long before the two of them had changed into a pair of dry clothes and were huddling close to the cooking fires for warmth.

"Now then," Caera began in a wry tone, "can you tell us what was so important that made you charge in here and nearly kill yourself?" She didn't have time to wait for an answer though, because at that moment she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to face Mr. Gordon.

"Alex Davenport really _is_ missing."

* * * * *

Claudia's group had no luck finding Alex. Mr. Gordon left them to see if Alex had appeared back by the river with Caera's group.

Claudia and her friends waited a while before there were grumblings about heading back. The others finally started heading back along the trail, when Claudia felt a searing pain in her calf and ankle and couldn't go on. She didn't understand where the pain was coming from; she hadn't fallen, nor could she find any bruises or scratches. In a moment she heard a cry for help, muffled and a little feeble, though desperate and urging. Now her group was crowded around her, and she realized that she had fallen down and had herself cried out.

Was she hearing things now? she wondered.

"Did any of you hear something just now?" Claudia asked the others, Their blank, puzzled faces clearly said "no" as if their mouths had opened and uttered the word. Another cry called out to her, and she told Brian Anderson and his friends to stay and wait for the other groups, took her first aid kit and followed the source of the sound. After a few minutes at a fast pace, Claudia reached a large hill just off the path.

The wind began whispering in the leaves. Claudia shivered, even though it wasn't cold. She felt a strange creeping cold sensation and turned around quickly to check all around her. There was no one. She reminded herself to breathe but tried not to make an audible sound.

The wind whispered again, rising in pitch like the dreadful wail of a ban-shee. Claudia stumbled a little in haste away from the sound and toward the hill. As she scrambled nearer, a luminous mass of pale, ghostly light suddenly appeared before her on the rough path.

Claudia stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart was racing away like a runaway train.

Then, as she stared at the vapors, a disembodied head many times larger than human, but human nonetheless, began to appear among them.

It can't be! she thought, recognizing the girl's face. "Emma Campbell!" Claudia jumped back and almost bolted away, but she ran into someone close behind her.

Claudia whirled around in surprise.

"Who?" Brian asked, holding her steady, as the group came up behind her.

"Yikes! Hey, don't sneak up on a person like that!" she cried.

"Who were you talking to?" Brian asked, offering her a blank stare.

"No one," Claudia said, turning back around.

She looked left and right. There was no sign of the ghost. Claudia sighed deeply, her nerves still taut as a wire.

Then, after a minute, Claudia heard a cry again from a cave farther ahead, and for the first time the rest of her group did, too.

"Hey, what was that?" Brian asked.

"I don't know," Claudia said.

"Wow, you heard it from all the way back on the trail," Brian said in wonder. "Cool!"

"Uh-huh," Claudia agreed half-heartedly. She was more curious about the sound. It was definitely not Emma Campbell, she thought.

Growing bolder, Claudia stepped inside the dark opening of the cave before them and almost fell into the hole where Alex Davenport had spent the last few hours.

* * * * *

Marie Summit had been making a mental note of all the two sets of twins' relations with each other since the beginning of the school year, spreading whatever gossip she could about them, and especially enjoying spreading gossip she knew wasn't true. Now she and the others knelt outside the cave. Alex had been pulled out of the hole by a beefy ninth grader from the high school. Actually, the hole was only four feet deep, not very high but too high for him to have hauled himself out with his arms.

Claudia was spraying and bandaging Alex's injured calf and ankle, not saying anything about what had made her falter upon nearing the hill ( after all, what was so special about it? Marie asked herself) but was obviously still thinking about it. She certainly wasn't mentioning how she heard Alex so far away--something which Marie felt deserved an explanation. Marie hadn't heard it, and she prided herself on her keen sense of hearing, which was so necessary to her craft. Oh well, if Claudia wasn't able to come up with a satisfactory opinion, she could think of one or two.

Other extraordinary developments did not escape Marie's careful observation. Frankly, she found them all to be extremely interesting. Especially now that Alex was shining with admiration and looking at Claudia the way Marie wished that Jason Robinson would look at her. But even if Claudia weren't too busy tying Alex's bandage, Marie didn't think she would notice. After all, hadn't they been at odds since pre-school? Was Claudia supposed to believe that Alex's change of heart was sincere after nearly a decade of teasing?

It was funny because no matter what gossip she'd spread in the past, Alex's changed attitude was a complete surprise to Marie. She'd never imagined that any of her predictions might come true, which was why she had said them. Spreading the truth was generally against her policy, but then again, the rest of the school hadn't witnessed what she had (and wouldn't believe it if they had), and she just knew that Caera and Claudia would deny everything she said to make it a juicier story. Marie smiled as the thought of the headlines in her next gossip column began to formulate.

* * * * *

Caera was extremely worried about Alex. Why hadn't she suspected he might be missing? She had no one to blame but herself for not noticing his absence, but--it just would be one of the Davenports that caused trouble on an otherwise perfect survival trip. And the purpose of the trip was to survive, after all. She thought of Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest from science the year before and giggled.

The world just might be better off without an Alex Davenport in it, but Mrs. Johnson, Mr. Gordon, and Alex's parents would disagree, and it was up to Caera to find him, now that Mr. Gordon had decided to wait by the river in case Alex returned there. Caera looked over to Andrew's drawn face as they walked down the trail and scolded herself for thinking such terrible thoughts about Alex. Where did she get such ideas from, anyway? she wondered. Maybe from kindergarten, or first grade, or second grade...

Caera turned around for a minute to count heads and make sure that no one else had gotten lost. Nope. All seven present and accounted for. She only hoped that everything was all right with Mr. Gordon's group by the river. All of a sudden Caera spotted people in the distance. She and Andrew ran ahead of the others and found Brian Anderson and two others guarding four large baskets of brambles.

"Where's Claudia?" Caera wheezed between gasps for breath.

"She and the others took off that way." Brian pointed at a large rocky hill that Caera had noticed earlier. "Said something about a call for help and told me to stay here with these guys."

"O.K., right." Caera turned to her group and said, "let's go see if we can find Claudia's group. They may have found Alex."

Andrew nodded, trying hard not to worry about Alex. Why hadn't he noticed Alex wandering off? he wondered. What was he going to do if anything happened to his brother? he thought in horror.

"All right, let's move it!" Caera shouted like a drill sergeant and hurried to the front of the group to take command.

Twenty minutes later, Claudia spotted Caera's group through someone's binoculars, marching dramatically in unison like a conquering Roman legion. A minute before, she had heard them whistling "Colonel Bogie's March" and had guessed who was coming.

"Alex!" Andrew shouted in relief when he spied his brother sitting in the clearing; he could recognize Alex even at a great distance. He ran over to him and Alex started explaining what had happened to him.

Caera didn't really have to ask Claudia what had happened to Alex. Anyone could see that it was just another case of curiosity landing into an unfortunate situation. What she really wanted to know was how Claudia had heard Alex from the path, but Claudia's group were in agreement that she had. While George Stuart was prattling in Caera's ear the age old "Well, there has to be some sort of scientific explanation" (Caera wondered what nerd had coined that phrase), she noticed that Claudia was giving her the "We have to talk privately" look. A minute of casual and slow wandering toward the cave later, Claudia checked to see that Marie Summit was out of earshot and said,

"I have to show you something. Com'ere." Upon finding Alex and having him lifted out of the pit that he had fallen into, Claudia had noticed that a small rectangular slab of stone lined part of the cave's bottom to the right of the pit in the gloom. Now Claudia shone her flashlight to show Caera her discovery. On the slab was engraved an inscription:

"Draw together the clues that you find

For your purpose, keep in mind

You will see that what is is what is not

Search carefully, X marks the spot."

Argyll House

Kate Campbell laughed to herself as she slowly withdrew her popcorn bag from the microwave. She was looking forward to watching her favorite program on t.v. that evening in peace, a change from normal Saturday nights when the twins were downstairs making noise or needing help with doing their homework if for some reason they didn't put it off until the last minute.

Mrs. Campbell was momentarily interrupted from her thinking by a call from the living room, reminding her that the show was about to begin. Mr. Campbell lay with his back propped up against the sofa, sipping at a warm mug of malted milk. By the time his wife entered the room, he had already heard the beginning music of the program and had just started to peel the foil wrapper off a Cadbury's Dairy Milk with almonds and raisins--a sign that both were in a celebratory mood. No sooner than Mrs. Campbell had sat down, whereupon her husband relieved her of the burden of the popcorn bag, both heard a loud knocking at the front door.

Surprising as it was to get any unexpected visitors during the day when one lived so far from town, on a Sunday night it was almost unprecedented, especially on a night when it was pouring rain outside. Anyone who made it from the road to the front door would be soaking wet. Mrs. Campbell got up to open the door and was astonished to see the faces of her twins smiling half-heartedly in the cold, standing beside the young science teacher, Mr. Gordon. Behind them stretched a block of kids to the end of the sidewalk, at a guess about forty. Each and every one was painted with mud and streaked with water, and if there were any who weren't cold, they were sandwiched between half a dozen other people who were pushing their way closer to the house.

"Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Campbell, but could we possibly--" Mr Gordon began tactfully.

"Mom, cccould you lllet us in? We're fffreezing," Caera interrupted impatiently, chattering through clenched teeth. Mrs. Campbell had just enough time to shoot her daughter a questioning look before signaling that everyone could come inside. One by one, each beleaguered member of the ill-fated survival expedition trudged to the front door and removed a pair of something that must have once been shoes from their feet before filing in. Behind a chorus of squelches sounded in harmony as the line moved up. Soon all were in the living room, the study, the dining room, or the kitchen wearing their extra pair of clothes and sipping steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

An hour or so later, Mrs. Campbell sighed for the third time that evening as George Stuart started to sneeze. There were only two boxes of tissues left, and it appeared that her guests would have to spend the night when a flash flood warning appeared across the bottom of the t.v.

"We're all out of milk," she announced to no one in particular (except maybe herself), although it could be said that she had made the comment in Caera's direction.

"Can you believe we got rained out?" Caera grumbled.

Mrs. Campbell smiled. She would have thought the situation was very funny if she and Mr. Campbell didn't have sleeping arrangements to worry about. In fact, she was sure he was busy laundering the campers sheets at that very moment.

"Claudia, could you and Caera look through our DVD's for a movie for your friends to watch while I go get some blankets out of the storage room?" Mrs Campbell asked.

"Sure." Claudia said, and Mrs. Campbell hurried away. Meanwhile, Jason Robinson was already getting another frozen pizza out of the freezer. As Claudia began to think of what she could suggest that everyone would agree to, people snatched all the available food and left for the living room. Caera hung back to clear away a few dishes. She had her back to everyone as she stooped over the dishwasher. Her face was flushed, and beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. As Claudia and Ana turned through the doorway to leave, Claudia thought that she heard a muffled sneeze coming from the abandoned room.

* * * * *

It was almost one o' clock in the morning. Caera, Claudia, and Ana had crept silently away from the others and had met in the library, one of the only rooms in the house not decorated with sleeping bodies. In her hand, Claudia grasped the scrap of paper that Caera had scribbled on after Claudia had shown her the hidden stone in the cave.

Claudia sat down to face Ana and Caera and began to tell them what had really happened to her before she had found Alex and the cave. Ana was taking in the information in her normal way—she was jumping up and down in her chair with excitement.

"You really saw the ghost of Emma Campbell! And she led you to Alex!"

"Yes," Claudia said, shaking her head.

"Well then, Claudia, do you know what this means?" Caera asked.

"No. What?"

"It means Emma isn't haunting out house—she's haunting us!"

"Caera, don't jump to conclusions yet." Claudia protested, looking really nervous.

"Yeah," Ana agreed. "Maybe Emma was protecting you, Claudia, not haunting you. You know, so you wouldn't fall into that cave like Alex."

Claudia brightened. "I suppose."

"Anyway, it could be that Emma was leading us to another piece of evidence that might help us find her diary." Caera said.

"What does that " X marks the spot" mean, do you think?" Ana wondered. "Do you suppose it's an x on a map?"

"Hey, you may be right, Ana." Caera said. "Do you think maybe what it's talking about is a map of specific places that will 'mark the spot'. Sort of a dot-to-dot? Maybe we just connect the locations of where we find clues or markers and that's the X."

"Well, I guess," Claudia sounded skeptical. "I suppose we can plot the places where we've seen Emma and see if that gives us any lead. Maybe her ghost isn't haunting us specifically, but it can't go beyond a certain area. And--maybe her diary is at the center of that area, too."

"You mean--if the diary is the physical object that's keeping her trapped here on Earth as a ghost?" Ana suggested.

"Maybe. And maybe Emma is trying to lead us to it whenever she appears—" Claudia stopped as she heard the door creak open, and as she saw Alex and Andrew Davenport walk in. Alex limped forward, disdainfully eyeballing the trio just before he and his brother slouched into some chairs.

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Yeah, you're not really thinking," Andrew began reproachfully, "of looking for some dopey diary, are you?" Claudia was looking at them suspiciously.

"Hey, you were eavesdropping on us!" Ana cried.

Alex tried to maintain his smug expression, but inside he was secretly disappointed.

He was just dying to know what they'd found out about the cave. It'd spooked him initially, though he wouldn't have admitted it to them, and upon listening from the hallway, he realized there was something else going on here, that was somehow connected to it, even though he wasn't about to believe all that hokey nonsense about seeing ghosts or anything. Unfortunately, Claudia wasn't about to tell him anything, and he really wanted to help them without his brother (and his friends) teasing him. At that moment, however, Andrew was tugging on his shirt like he wanted to tell him something so the two of them left.

Ana yawned and announced that she was going to bed, and Claudia got up to go with her, when she noticed that Caera wasn't moving. Caera insisted that she would be along in a minute and stubbornly maintained that nothing was wrong, but Claudia remained unconvinced. With a yawn, she turned down the hallway as Caera sat alone in an armchair.

* * * * *

Claudia smiled as she watched Mrs. Summit's car stop in front of the house. Marie was the last of the kids to leave that morning, and Claudia was anxious to see her off. She stooped to pick up Marie's rucksack and walked Marie to the car because Marie's own hands were so full of her dirty clothes and a stack of papers.

Claudia almost laughed out loud as she recalled the morning's activity. She had awakened at about seven o' clock and had immediately proceeded downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast when she bumped into Ana at the top of the landing. Much to the dismay of her not-yet-fully-awake-let-me-sleep-till-sometime-next-week brain, the first thing she was to learn was that she had missed an exciting night of pillow fighting, kitchen raiding, storytelling, late night movie watching, and other exciting events. Christopher Summit, Jason, and David Stuart had even rigged up a flying ghost with some old sheets and had succeeded in scaring the pants off Emily Miles.

Most of the revelers, Claudia had ascertained as she and Ana descended the stairs and entered a living room of zombies, were feeling the effects of getting so little sleep. It had been amusing to see how everyone looked so early in the morning. True to his reputation, Jason Robinson was found sleeping on the kitchen floor with his arms around the refrigerator.

In half an hour, Claudia and Ana had devised a system whereby Ana roused the groggies, leaving the snores for later, and sent them into the kitchen to eat the buttermilk pancakes Claudia had just finished cooking on the griddle. Everything had been running smoothly until Emily Miles entered the room, saw the butter and maple syrup spread on the table, and insisted that she have her pancakes with raspberries and cream. However, after a few minutes of her complaining, Erica Miles heard of it and threatened to tell their mother of Emily's impossible behavior, and Emily reluctantly agreed to the maple syrup.

Luckily for everyone else present, Emily had been the first to leave. Soon after, more and more parents came for their children, but there were so many that Claudia had barely noticed the time go by until she had seen Marie off. Now, ten minutes of reflection and relaxation later, Claudia noticed for the first time that Caera had been asleep all morning.

If Claudia knew her sister, Caera had probably spent the entire evening partying with everyone else, and if so, Claudia knew she would need her sleep, but nevertheless, her impatience soon got the best of her, and she was climbing the stairs to Caera's room in leaps and bounds.

What she found was not the heavy lids and mussed hair of her normally cheery sister but a curled up lump shivering under the covers. Claudia had started calling to Caera from the doorway, but as she rounded the corner of her sister's bed, it became obvious to her that Caera couldn't answer back.

* * * * *

Dr. Windlebume moved away from his patient, dropping the stethoscope in his hand and letting it fall noiselessly over his many chins to the padded breast of his tweed coat. Claudia tried hard not to stare as he opened his mouth to reveal two pitchfork-like incisors protruding downwards like identical walrus tusks.

"Pneumonia," he announced in a flat, emotionless voice that Claudia perceived was the only way he knew how to distance himself from the situation. Gathering up his various instruments and putting them in his little black bag, he left the room with Mrs. Campbell to further discuss Caera's symptoms and decide on the best medication for her. Claudia suppressed a giggle as the giant walrus squeezed through the door and waddled off.

Suddenly, she remembered her sister's sleeping form and sat down worriedly on the edge of the bed, keeping a silent vigil over her. Caera's face was beaded with rivulets of sweat, and the short hair near her forehead was sopping wet. She slept with her legs pulled in for warmth, but Claudia laid an extra blanket over her sister, who wouldn't stop shivering.

Susanna

Emma gathered up her skirts to follow her cousin Susanna into the cool, shallow water. The sun shone brightly, but the wind was strong and her hair blew across her face, so that she had to pull it out of her mouth with her free hand. It was nearing three o' clock on a Saturday late in summer, and the sand's growing heat made the water more and more inviting to her feet.

Susanna was ahead of her, knee-deep in the water and splashing around in her linen shift and skirt, all but drenching her cousin as she approached. Removing a wet curl from her cheek, Emma exclaimed,

"Stop splashing me! You're getting me all wet!"

"Oh am I?" Susanna asked with elaborate innocence before "accidentally" sending an enormous wave in Emma's direction. Emma was momentarily knocked off her feet and came up with a mouthful of salt water. Spitting it out, she erupted into a fit of giggles before retaliating. While Susanna thought they were both still laughing, Emma had stopped and was dousing her friend's ringlets.

Susanna jumped when the cold water hit her in a salty spray, and she opened her eyes to find a piece of seaweed draped across her nose. Her lips pursed sourly then spread into a fiendish smile, and for a few minutes a great battle was waged which culminated in both parties being thoroughly soaked. Laughing their way to shore, they spread out like flounders on the hot sand.

Side by side, Susanna and Emma looked like night and day. Although both shared similar facial features that they had inherited from their fathers' side of the family, Susanna's mother was of French extraction and like her, Susanna's hair was a lustrous raven black while hers hair was dark blond. She had always been closer to Susanna than any of her other cousins because both had lost their mothers at an early age and had bonded together in their loneliness. Susanna smiled and closed her eyes, relishing the tranquillity of the beautiful day, but suddenly a cloud that had not been there before darkened the sky, and Emma saw a ghastly vision of another day.

Summer had yielded to cold winter winds, and Susanna's smile was a fleeting memory. Now Susanna was dressed entirely in black, and tears streamed down her face as a procession marched past, a group of young men bearing something away on their shoulders. This other Susanna choked back a sob and blinked her red eyes open, trying to stifle the anguish that wrenched her heart. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong...

Emma's eyes focused when she felt Susanna shaking her and calling her name, "Emma, what's wrong?" Susanna wore a frown and her forehead wrinkled in concern. "You looked so strange for a minute." The sun was shining as brightly as ever. "I feared that something terrible might happen. Are you listening to me, Emma? What did you see? Emma!"

Emma had known that something wasn't right, as if the fog in her mind suggested things that eluded recognition but made her uneasy nevertheless. In an instant she blurted out,

"But...", unsure whom she was really telling—herself, Susanna, or someone else, "My name isn't Emma!" As she said it became a scream, and with each word she felt a growing dread that something horrible would happen if she continued, yet she felt the force of the words like an overpowering tide. Her heart thudded with terror as a thousand eerie shrieks pierced her ears and the serenity of the beach faded into darkness. The ground gave away beneath her feet and she fell, flailing her arms in search of something to grasp hold of. But there was nothing.

Still the echo of her own voice resounded endlessly.

"But I'm not Emma!..."

Finally she landed on something cold and hard. Opening her eyes, she found herself on the wooden pier near the lighthouse. The whole town seemed deserted, for there was no light except the moon's reflection on the sea. It dimmed as an unsettling fog rolled ashore seemingly from nowhere. The lighthouse poured forth a beacon of hope to sea travelers, and Emma turned her head around to glance at the town clock, realizing in a split-second that she had heard it chime twelve on another fateful night. As if recognized from a dream, she wasn't surprised to see the shadow lurking beneath it.

Everywhere she ran, the town remained deadly silent, and when she thought that she could make out a sound, she discovered that it was merely the thumping of her own feet on the wooden planks. With a premonitory shudder, she realized that she knew what was about to happen to her. An image of Susanna dressed in black drifted across her mind and brought scared tears to her eyes.

* * * * *

Caera woke up completely. The last thing she could clearly recall was the end of the survival expedition; though Claudia was just walking into her bedroom with a stack of books that would put an Egyptian pyramid to shame, so she figured that she had been off school for a long time.

Caera's illness and her delirium had left her very weak and swamped with assignments. Now that she was on the road to recovery, she could begin working on the ever-increasing pile from her teachers of things to do, reminders that, if nothing else, at least they were thinking of her.

"Congratulations, Caera." Claudia beamed." Guess who's got a biographical research project due in two weeks? Mr. Hoffmeyer graciously decided that I bring you tidings of good cheer from his merry classroom. I seem to recall that his exact words were," Claudia made a mock stern voice, "'Please inform your sister that she has her choice of these three local historical figures, all of whom have made significant contributions to the life and welfare of our community." Claudia then made a funny face.

"I guess you'll have to go to the library when you're better." Claudia added.

Caera made a whining sound.

"Hey, what's wrong, Caera?"

"Claudia, did I miss Halloween?" Caera cried out as it struck her that she had, if her homework was any indication.

Claudia laughed. "Don't worry, Caera. Some of us took up a candy collection for you at school the day after."

"Just how long was I sick, Claudia?" Caera began to feel as if she'd lost a huge chunk of her life that she couldn't account for.

"Oh, about three weeks." Claudia said, almost incidentally.

"Three weeks! What's today?"

"November the fifteenth." Claudia said. "But hey, Caera, you did have pneumonia, after all. Anyway, just look at your Halloween candy!"

Caera propped herself up on her elbows to take a look about her room. Nestled in the far corner was a black plastic bag, stuffed and tied with twist a tie.

Claudi laughed as Caera hurried out of bed to investigate its contents; anything of the chocolate persuasion wasn't likely to survive the afternoon.

* * * * *

The next morning, Caera's mother dropped her off at the town library so that she could begin working on her report. Once she had the information she needed, she gathered the books together and handed over her library card.

What to do? she thought to herself. Claudia and everyone else was at school, so Caera thought that she would take a walk along the beach before her mother came to get her. It was only 11:15; she had a good hour and a half before her mother got off work for her lunch break.

Caera strolled down the pier, basking in the bright sun, even though the strong breeze coming off the sea made it cold this close to winter. The wooden planks made a hollow thumping sound as she walked around and enjoyed herself, glancing in shop windows, and later stopping to watch the waves lapping at the shore as the town center ended and the docks for the fishing boats began. There was hardly anyone around. After stopping to buy an ice cream cone from the vender a few yards back, Caera decided to visit the old town park before returning to the library to wait for her mother.

The park was on the seaside. The park was a beautiful place, surrounded by tall oak trees with white benches and wondrous flower gardens all around. The grass, however, was softer than the benches, so Caera spread out her jacket on the ground to sit and pulled out a book to read. There were flocks of pigeons and seagulls flying high above, carefully landing just close enough to Caera to retrieve a fallen bit of her ice cream cone.

Caera's subject for her biography report was from the French and Indian War. As Caera flipped the pages aimlessly, the subject of the next chapter caught her eye. In nearly every book that she and Claudia had looked in, only the Campbell mystery was mentioned, but in this book, she saw three new Campbell names. "I wonder how Claudia missed this one?" she thought aloud. As she skimmed each paragraph, she began to remember bits of the dream that she had had when she was sick.

Closing the book, Caera picked up her jacket and ran down the old path to the library which would shortcut the distance to the town center by bypassing the pier. If she timed things just right, she should reach the middle school just in time for lunch.

* * * * *

Claudia and Ana were sitting down to a plate of macaroni and cheese with various assorted vegetables and deserts on the side when Caera came running down the aisle and surprised them. She was out of breath and trying to talk, flip through, and point at a book all at the same time, and at all three things she was failing miserably.

Once Caera was finally able to speak, she began babbling so uncontrollably that Claudia had to pry the book from her fingers and shove her into a chair. What was she doing here anyway? By Claudia's account, Caera should still be poring over research books at the library. Running into the cafeteria and having everyone in the entire seventh grade stare at her was definitely not what she should be doing. Ana tried to calm Caera as Claudia fingered the page that Caera had been pointing at. She came to three names and gasped: John Campbell, Susanna Campbell, and Collin Alexander Campbell.

Caera took this moment to grab the book back from her sister. "I haven't had the chance to read this yet because I came as soon as I could to show it to you guys, but look at the name 'Susanna Campbell'. You don't recognize it, do you?"

Claudia shook her head expectantly, while Ana wore her characteristic bemused expression.

"Well, I do. It just came to me that when I had pneumonia, I dreamed that I was Emma again—"

"Again? You didn't say anything about it!" Claudia said with a shout that carried through the din to the next table, where Caera could just see Marie Summit's head turning around.

"Ssshh! You're loud enough for the human sonar to hear you. Anyway, just look at this. It's something Susanna wrote, after becoming a prominent figure in the community." Caera was anxious to shut her sister up as it appeared Marie was straining to hear what they were saying as inconspicuously as it was possible for her. Claudia saw her sister glance at the next table, and upon seeing Marie, she decided to shelve the issue away as a topic for later discussion. All three girls turned their backs to Marie's table to read the first excerpt that Caera had found.

"'...Years after Emma's death, I am still plagued with questions. Why did Emma leave Argyll House? Under what circumstances was she left alone there on the evening of her death? Was she coming to me for help? However, the most important question I ask is the question of who killed her, and I fear that question cannot be answered. I do think it likely that the villain who murdered my dear cousin was the same who murdered my uncle; though I cannot persuade myself to accept that the respectable solicitor Mr. Davenport was involved, despite the charges leveled against him. Why should anyone murder an innocent child? Mr. Davenport died before the trial and left behind three young orphans. I cannot imagine a man with family, fortune, and honor capable of such a foul deed. Thus I shall go to my grave with the knowledge that Emma's murderer was never brought to justice to pay for his crime.

\--Excerpt from the diary of Susanna Campbell McKinnon,

March 3, 1804.'"

"Wow." Claudia breathed as Caera finished. Ana had hardly said a word during the interchange, but her eyes urged for details. "What did you dream about?"

"Well," Caera began, "Susanna and I were on a picnic. We waded in the water on one of the last warm days of the year and we were having a good time, until suddenly a cloud passed over the sky, and I was watching a funeral procession. Susanna was there, all dressed in black. Her cheeks were red and puffy, like she'd been crying for a long time, and it occurred to me, no, to Emma, that I was watching my, Emma's funeral. It was so eerie, so terrifying! "

"But it's almost as if it was you, Caera, and not Emma, who was really on the beach talking to Susanna."

"I for one won't watch any more horror movies for a while." Ana shuddered.

"Why do you think you dreamed it, Caera?" Ana asked.

"Whaddaya mean?"

"Well, it just seems like too much to be a coincidence. You dreamed about Susanna and just a few days later you find her in this book? Why now of all times?"

"Ida know. But Susanna was really nice to me. I believe her—what she says about Mr. Davenport. I don't think he was Emma's killer, or the man who killed James Campbell."

"So Emma is trying to lead you both to the real killer." Ana said. "Your dream about Susanna is another piece of the puzzle of Emma's murder."

"But why am I dreaming about Susanna?" Caera wondered. "We already guessed that Mr. Davenport might not have been the real killer."

"Maybe she was trying to tell you to find out about her family?" Ana wondered. "Because... because maybe her family had something to do with her death, or the treasure, or maybe even both!" Ana finished, in growing excitement.

"Ana, you're brilliant!" Claudia cried.

"Thanks." Ana shrugged.

"Hey, Caera, you'd better go," Claudia interrupted. "You don't want to be caught in school when you're supposed to be at home sick."

"I'll leave in a minute, but first, I couldn't help wondering, what should we do now? Now that we know Aaron Davenport may not have been Emma's murderer?"

"Well," Claudia said, thinking it over. "We need to start looking for evidence to prove his innocence."

"Yeah!"

"You're forgetting one very unpleasant scenario, Claudia." Ana dampened Claudia's mood and made her feel uncertain with a foreboding look. "If Aaron Davenport is the killer, it's a good bet he stole Emma's diary. So if we want to prove he was innocent, we are going to have to investigate the area around Davenport's house, maybe even inside it, too."

Everyone let this sink in; then Claudia broke the silence.

"Oh great. How do we search for clues where those two rodents live without their knowing about it? We don't want those creeps to find out about the treasure!"

"Simple enough." Caera said slyly. "We'll wait until we know they're going to be otherwise occupied."

Investigation

A few days later, after Caera had finished her history project and some of her other work, her mother forcefully suggested that it was time that she went back to school. Before first period she had already heard so many "I'm really sorry you were sick"s and "I'm so glad you're better, we all missed you"s and endured countless feeble smiles and waves that she tried to hide her face behind her books on the way to history.

She figured that somewhere down the hallway Claudia was being greeted with similar expressions by people who couldn't tell that she wasn't Caera, which was about half of the seventh grade. She turned around but couldn't see Claudia, and then she sped up when she guessed that the three girls walking in her direction from the water fountain were approaching to express their sympathies.

When she and Claudia entered the history room, Marie and Emily fixed their attention on the twins. Marie looked like a complacent spider waiting in its web, but Emily betrayed a certain eagerness in her attitude and voice.

"Are you guys going to have another Christmas party this year?" Emily enthused, for once refraining from sneering. Marie was new to the school and had never attended any of the Campbells' annual Christmas parties, but she seemed to relish the idea as an unparalleled opportunity. Caera was about to answer that she wasn't sure what her parents were going to do this year when Claudia answered,

"Yes. We're having it on December the eighteenth at about seven o' clock, but we haven't gotten around to sending the invitations yet."

"Are the Davenports going?" Marie asked.

Caera didn't like what Marie was implying and answered her in an acrimonious tone, "How could we know if we haven't asked them yet?" Emily narrowed her eyes and was about to say something more when Marie nudged her shoulder and told her that she had to leave before she got a detention. Judging how interesting Marie was finding the conversation, Caera figured that it pained her to leave.

Caera and Claudia ate their lunch that afternoon in relative silence. Ana had stayed after class to find out her French test grade. Ten minutes into lunch, Claudia saw her at the end of the lunch line, which had been permanently and sizably reduced a few weeks before with the addition of a snack food line on the other side of the cafeteria. Ana normally headed straight for the pizza and French fries, but it looked as if she'd have to wait until fifth period if the length of the snack line was any indication. Caera figured that Ana would have to make do with a submarine sandwich and chocolate "wacky" cake.

Ana sat down and did what she always did; she handed the cake to Caera and Caera passed down her three chocolate covered Oreos in unspoken agreement. Today, for once, Ana ignored the cookies and started a monologue at full speed.

"Guess what, guys?" She didn't even wait for a "what?" before continuing, "While I was waiting outside Mrs. Winters' door, I heard Michael Goodman and Corey Richardson talking by their lockers. It seems that those twirps, Alex and Andrew, are having a slumber party at their house on December the nineteenth. I think they've invited at least a dozen boys from school. They'll be too busy to notice us if we're really quiet. We could look around outside for clues without their interfering. It seems their parents won't be there all evening. They're going to a dinner party. The way I see it, this is our best chance!"

"Hold on there a second." Claudia laughed. "You've got a great idea there, Ana," Claudia said. "But what'll we do until then?"

"Well, we'll have to take a break next week during the Thanksgiving holidays." Ana replied, thinking about it. "I've gotta go with my family to my grandmother's house, but maybe when I get back on the weekend we can meet and start our investigation."

"That sounds like a pretty good idea." Caera reflected a moment, seemingly calm until she glanced at her wristwatch. "We'd better hurry up and finish eating. We've only got a few minutes of lunch left. Are you coming with us to the library after school today, Ana?"

Ana had a mouthful of submarine sandwich and only nodded her head up and down.

"Okay. Then we'll see you in the parking lot at 3:15." Caera grabbed her empty lunch sack, waved to Claudia and Ana, and walked to her locker as the lunch bell rang.

* * * * *

Caera, Claudia. and Ana half-walked, half-ran the distance from the school to the library. When they got inside, Claudia led the others to the book that she had Xeroxed on her last visit.

"There aren't any more books on it?" Caera practically whined.

"I don't guess there are. I looked all over the history section before I came to the reference section. And this was all I found, just a few pages about the town. But..." Claudia paused before continuing, "do you think that the library has got any really old books, like in an archives building?"

"It might, but I've never seen them or heard anything about them." Ana sounded a bit doubtful.

"Well the only thing we can do is ask!" Caera smiled broadly and then headed for the receptionist's desk at a brisk pace. If there was one thing that Caera had, Claudia reflected, it was nerve.

A few minutes later, Claudia saw Caera returning with a librarian.

"...and of course we don't get many people your age asking about it—You'll see why in a minute—but it really is the most interesting section of the library. Oh, are these your little friends?"

Caera cringed at the "little friends" part, wondering how long she could hold her sarcastic retorts in check. After all, she looked so nervous and mild, wouldn't she be pretty easy to cut down to size? Claudia saw the gleam in Caera's eyes and elbowed her when the librarian's back was turned.

"Just follow me now, children." Caera's face was turning red but she trudged silently behind Ana.

The librarian took them through the offices at the back of the library and then past a room housing microfiches. The room that they finally entered into was musty and cold. The wood on the floor looked new, but the walls were made of shriveled boards that gave new meaning to the word "ancient".

"If you'd come in about a month you wouldn't have seen these," the librarian pointed to the walls. "They're all that's left of the original building. You see, this was the only room there was when the library was built back in 1794. Of course, over the years the floor had to be re-done a few times—"

"Of course." Caera mimicked.

"...most recently in 1986, I believe. Ah, but the walls have survived. Of course, they, too, have to go. I think they'll be replaced, what is it, the twenty-first of December? Of course, the Christmas holidays is the best time to do it. Everyone's taking time off, you know. We get so few books checked out then. Still, it is a sad thing--" she broke off when she saw that the girls were getting fidgety.

"Oh well, have a look around, and let me know if you have any problems or questions or--" she looked at Caera, "whatever." The librarian hurried out the doorway, and Claudia sighed with relief. She was wondering how much longer Caera would refrain from giving the woman a piece of her mind.

"Boy, what was her problem?" Caera grumbled. "Honestly, you'd think we were five years old."

"I think she could tell you weren't pleased, Caera."

"Yeah, but she didn't have a clue as to why. I tell you, she'd notice if I talked to her in that patronizing tone."

"Will you two quit it," Ana yelled from somewhere in the room, "and help me look through these books?"

Caera gave a shrug and walked off in a different direction from Ana, while Claudia started searching down an aisle somewhere between them. Twenty minutes later, they were still looking, when Claudia shouted,

"Hey, I think I've found something. Com'ere you guys!" Ana and Caera rushed over. "Look!" Claudia held a large and tall but very thin book. Most of the gold lettering had worn away, but the words were indented underneath.

"'People and places of the Eighteenth Century' What year was it published, Claudia?" Ana had her head bent so far over the book that she was blocking the light, so Claudia bent it sideways to see.

"I think it says 1817, but the words look so flowery that it's hard to read it. What a weird printing style. I can't tell the "p's", "f's", and "s's" apart. Anyway, that wasn't what I called you over for. Look here, in chapter three—local news," she thumbed the pages over carefully, "it has the complete family tree of Emma's relatives, or as complete as they can make it, anyway." Claudia held out the book so that they could all see it.

"We must be descended from Collin Alexander Campbell." Caera mused aloud.

"Why did it have to be Alexander?" Claudia asked, only partly serious.

"Really, Claudia. I don't see why you guys can't just bury the hatchet with the Davenports."

"Try telling them Ana. They're the ones with attitude problems." Claudia threw back.

I don't think Alex's attitude problem is what you've made it out to be. Sure, they used to be jerks, but Alex seems a lot nicer this year, if you know what I mean, and I think Andrew's just a little shy and doesn't want to admit he's had a change of heart—"

"Come on, what heart?" Claudia laughed cheerfully. Ana's words made sense, but Claudia wanted to resist the logic of it. She didn't want to raise her hopes that the feud would be over with only to find out the Davenports were just playing another joke on them. She could almost see their faces sniggering at her for falling for it.

"All right, let's try to remember why we're here," Caera said. "We've got Emma's uncle John, her cousin Collin Alexander, and great uncle Ian Alexander here on this family tree, and they're all possible suspects."

"But Caera, they're our ancestors," Claudia said, in sudden realization. "We could be descended from a murderer!"

"Isn't everyone?" Caera threw back calmly.

"Huh?" Claudia said.

"Well, back in the day, everybody was killing somebody," Caera explained. "The cowboys killed the Indians, the English killed the French and vice versa, the Indians and Africans killed each other until the English came in and fought with them, and--just look at Australia. It was a penal colony, you know. An island of exiled prisoners who left England so that they wouldn't be hanged!"

"Wow!" Ana breathed. "Maybe you have a point there, Caera," she added.

"How's that for making you feel better, eh Claudia?"

Claudia was slightly appeased. "Okay, so, maybe that's why Emma's haunting us. So that we can make amends for one of our ancestors, the real murderer, whichever one he was, if it wasn't Mr. Davenport."

"Maybe." Caera agreed.

"So, who stood the best chance of inheriting the fortune?" Ana wondered. "If we're thinking about motives, we should suspect the person who was directly in line of inheriting."

"Let me check and see if the book says anything about that," Caera said, skimming the pages. "Hmmm. The beginning paragraphs talk about how the Campbells left Scotland and what was going on that made them leave, et cetera, et cetera...

"Ah, here it is—oh, this part tells what happens to them after they get to America. 'With the wealth he brought from Scotland, Duncan Campbell was able to buy a large plot of land. He also looked after his younger brother, Ian Alexander, who had come with him over the ocean.

"'With the arrival of more immigrants to the colony and to the growing town, the Campbells invested in several thriving industries, and their business flourished, giving Mr. Campbell the money to expand into the cane sugar and tobacco trade—Ew!" Caera interjected.

"Just continue with the story, Caera. There's nothing you can do about what happened hundreds of years ago."

"Right. Okay, Duncan married Elspeth MacRae, a Scotch-Irish woman. '"Her dowry"', Caera wanted to make comments on this sexist tradition but bit them back, "'was a small piece of land even farther out, about five miles from town. Elspeth had her first baby, John in April, 1726. Duncan and Elspeth also reared Ian Alexander like a son.

"Yeah, well, anyway, the next paragraph talks about boring stuff—how Duncan Campbell increased his and his younger brother's shares of their father's fortune. You know, business deals and so forth. Then in 1729,James Campbell is born. Elspeth dies in childbirth.

"'John marries Marie Dubois in 1748 and in 1749, they have a son, Collin Alexander. They move back to live with John's father for a while, and then for some reason John and his father argue, and later, John is disowned and moves far away with his family to Boston."

"Really?" Ana's eyes were wide with surprise. "Did anyone know why?"

"No. Well, at least the author of this book didn't know why. It just says that Mr. Campbell makes his younger son James his heir."

"Well, what happens next?" Ana asked.

"'In about five years, James marries Emma Douglas, of Virginia. Susanna Campbell is born in 1754 to John and Marie. Emma Campbell is born in 1755 to James and Emma. For three years, James keeps in touch with his brother without his father's knowledge. There's a note here that the letters were destroyed in 1926 when the archives building burned down. Then in October of 1758, Emma, that's James' wife Emma, catches pneumonia and dies—"

"Caera!" Claudia exclaimed. "You caught pneumonia in October!"

"I know, it's giving me the creeps just thinking about it." Caera shivered.

"Then lemme read it, Caera," Ana begged until Caera handed the book over to her.

"'In 1758, Duncan was out on business and attacked by highwaymen and shot! Meanwhile, James' endeavors prospered and made him a considerable fortune, much greater than his father's had been and even greater than his brother's. Hearing of the Van Cortland mansion in New York, James decided to invest his money in building a Georgian mansion called Argyll House.

"'Marie Campbell died in 1761. James invites Emma's cousins and his disinherited brother to live in Argyll House for a while. John Campbell acquired a house in town in 1763.

"'When James was murdered in 1768, Emma was supposed to go to town where John Campbell lived until her inheritance was settled. Emma Campbell was murdered one week to the day after her father. On her death, John inherited James' estate, most of the fortune having vanished, and he passed it on to his children years later.'"

"Well, that just about sums it up." Caera said. "It looks like John did it."

"Don't be so insensitive." Claudia complained.

"Uh oh, I sense a fight coming on," Ana thought to herself, perceptive in a way that came naturally after being around the twins for more than a day. She decided to break in and change the subject.

"Well, so who do you guys think was the killer?" It worked, and both Caera and Claudia instantly forgot about arguing.

"I thought it'd be someone in the family, but it looks as if it could've been that Aaron Davenport after all."

"Not really," Claudia contradicted, rather hastily, Caera observed. "Reason suggests that it was the person who stood to gain the most. That'd mean it'd have to have been John."

"But we can't make assumptions until we have evidence." Ana made the statement she'd heard in all of her favorite mysteries, which she'd been saving for the occasion. Caera and Claudia agreed with the sensibility of her reasoning, and a few minutes later, they headed outside to wait for Mrs. Robinson, who was taking them all home.

Unfortunately, Jason had just finished a driving lesson and was determined to show off his newly acquired skills to his sister and her friends with particular smugness. It was moments like these, Caera reflected, that she got down on her knees and thanked God she didn't have an older brother.

Thanksgiving

Monday morning dawned dark, gloomy, and miserable. After staying up too late the night before, not to mention Friday and Saturday night, when Caera went to bed, she was so tired she couldn't close her eyes. In what felt like one second, her alarm clock was sounding.

Dragging herself out of bed, she walked into the hallway towards her and Claudia's bathroom. Turning the handle, she discovered that the door was locked, and, to rub salt in the wound, almost immediately, splashing noises sounded from within.

"Sorry, Caera, I'm taking a bath. You'll have to wait five more minutes." Caera figured that Claudia must have been feeling pretty pleased with herself. For the past week Claudia had flaunted the fact that she didn't have a ton of make-up work by being as lazy as she possibly could. And now she was taking a bath during prime time for the bathroom!

"I bet she's taking a bubble bath. It'd be just typical." Caera thought to herself. Needless to say, it was a good fifteen minutes before she could get into the bathroom. After changing her outfit at least three times, Caera managed to pull on her shoes before stumbling down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"No time for breakfast," she thought to herself as she grabbed for the box of breakfast bars. What with her work being the way it was, she was getting used to the staples of a life on the run. Apparently, her mother was, too; her lunch money was waiting on the counter. All that was left was to pick up her schoolbag and put her toothbrush in it. After all, she figured she may have been out of time, but she didn't want to have peanut butter breath until lunchtime.

When Caera and Claudia arrived at school, Caera went directly to her locker, where she was bombarded by questions from friends who hadn't received invitations to the Campbell Christmas Party yet and who were obviously worried about being neglected. Caera tried to assure everyone who was invited and avoid those who weren't, but she just wasn't in the mood for conversation.

Caera started when she heard Brian Goodman and Justin Porter arguing, wondering how she had managed to sleepwalk her way to fourth period P.E. from her locker that morning.

"Yeah, why don't you just show off for us, Porter—"

"And why don't you just keep your big mouth shut, Goodman?"

"Uh oh, looks like trouble." Caera thought to herself. For the first time that year, the boys' and girls' P.E. had combined, and she could see that the situation was causing some negative feedback. They were all standing in the school gym, (somehow, Caera had dressed out while still in zombie form) waiting for Coach Poleman to lead everyone outside. The day was warming up, but even if it weren't, they'd still have had to go outside, anyway.

All the assembled company was wearing the school P.E. kit, (the school was very strict on this point) shorts and T-shirt in the school colors of gray and blue, which didn't exactly prepare them for or insulate them against the sometime arctic conditions of the area. Apparently, Coach Poleman felt like taking advantage of one of the last warm days of the year.

As for Brian Goodman and Justin Porter, P.E. was their favorite class because they could try to show off in front of the girls. Maybe that was because they couldn't show off any other way, Caera reflected dryly.

Justin, one of the school's fastest runners, (a position he was all-too-aware of and never let anyone else forget, either) seemed to provoke the hostilities of "The Good Man" every time he flexed his muscles in front of the girls. As the group got outside, however, Coach Poleman hushed everyone into complete silence and then shouted something incomprehensible before lining everyone up and giving them the signal to begin the race. They were all to run ten laps around the school (or jog or walk as the case usually was).

As Caera passed the front entrance for the third time, she wondered if she, Claudia, and Ana were ever going to figure out the mystery of Emma's death. Since her bout of pneumonia, she hadn't had one single dream about Emma, whereas before, she had dreamed about her nearly every night without even wanting to, and neither she nor Ana and Claudia could think of any new ideas about Emma's murderer.

Caera's thoughts were interrupted as Brian Goodman whizzed past and grinned at her.

"Smile!" Caera wondered if he thought he was being cute but couldn't help beaming back, anyway. After all, unlike the Davenports, he was at least friendly.

A little bit later, Caera and Claudia ran side by side at an even pace; way out in front, Justin and Brian along with several other boys, were trying to outdo one another. Both Caera and Claudia were physically fit, and by the end of the run, the steady pace had paid off. As they had made each lap, Susan Davies had handed them each a short bit of cut-up, plastic drinking straws. Now both girls dumped the straws and sat down on the curb of the parking lot to wait for most of the others to finish.

In the end, both Brian and Justin came in within a few seconds of each other, but Justin was still gloating over his victory when the last runner, George Stuart, the tissue-box fiend, staggered past the flagpole and collapsed with a feeble sigh. Caera made a personal note to herself to offer George a little advice before the next Physical Fitness Test. He'd probably love to do as well as his brother David for once, and she knew she could somehow make the suggestion without alluding that anything was wrong with him.

As for Caera herself, her health was almost 100% back to normal after her long illness, and though she had lost a little weight, she was feeling stronger every day. Swimming lessons helped with this. Since the survival trip, when her quick thinking and strong capabilities as a swimmer had helped save Andrew, she was eager to go to the classes on Thursday afternoons. One day, she had even spotted a new face in the beginners' class. It wasn't all that difficult. Andrew had at least five years and fifty pounds on everyone else in the baby pool. She'd had to hand it to him, though. It took real courage to dare to be seen in arm rings at his age.

* * * * *

During lunch, Caera was just sitting down to a tray of steak fingers and mashed potatoes when she saw Brian Goodman approaching, his complacent smile firmly affixed to his face. Actually, approaching was not quite the word Caera would have used. Brian swaggered confidently over to Caera, Claudia, and Ana's table and plopped himself into an empty chair.

"So, uh, Caera, I hear you're having a party this Christmas..." he began, beaming his irresistible grin while giving Caera a look that would melt butter. "Well?" Brian continued after a short pause.

"Bad news travels fast." Caera said, looking away to where Claudia was paying for her lunch. As she turned back to Brian, he gave her a hurt look.

"Okay, okay." Caera said, smiling in spite of the fact that she wasn't pleased about the way Claudia had given the word out about the Campbell Christmas Party this year. "You've cut me to the quick, Briney boy. The party's on the eighteenth."

"Great. So I can come?" Brian asked, moving so Claudia could sit down.

"Sure, all right, but you were gonna be invited, anyway. In fact, you and your whole family are invited. Our parents are inviting families, too." She explained.

"Marie Summit said something about dressing up or something..." Brian turned around to give Claudia a winsome smile as she shot Caera a puzzled look.

"What's going on?" Claudia asked, breaking into a smile as she looked at Brian and fumbled for her straw.

"Just lay on the charm..." Caera thought to herself, reflecting on how some people used their charisma as a weapon. Brian knew he could always get his way if he decided to be charming.

"Yeah, well, it's a costume party, so everyone's coming in fancy dress." She turned back to Brian.

"Well, I'm sure I won't have any problems finding something to wear." Brian said, combing a hand through his short brown hair.

"Of course, since when aren't you sure about anything?" Caera asked sarcastically and batted her eyelids sweetly.

"I guess you're right about that." Brian said. "Boy, you've really got me figured out, doncha, Caera?" he laughed, got up to leave, and slapped her on the back. "Catcha later, Caera!" He said as he returned to his table.

As Caera made her way to class after lunch, she was wondering how she had managed to stagger away from P.E. to the cafeteria. She hadn't realized or felt it right away when she pulled a muscle in her leg; it was just as she was putting on her shirt that her calf had begun to hurt.

Walking into French class, Caera was greeted by Mrs. Winters, whose broad pearly smile disintegrated into a worried frown as Caera hobbled to her desk. Though Caera would have liked to accept Mrs. Winters' suggestion that she visit the school nurse, she had a feeling that Mrs. MacAllister, affectionately known as "Old Ironsides", was already sick of seeing her face. Twice on Friday Caera had to go in to receive the last two dosages of medicine prescribed by her family's doctor, Dr. Windlebume.

Secretly, Caera suspected that the twice-divorced Mrs. MacAllister relished the times when she had the clinic all to herself; not only did she not have to bother with sick students, but she could carry on prolonged conversations with Mr. Jenson, the school's unmarried principal, who, in Caera's opinion, probably had nothing better to do.

Claudia came into the room just then, followed by Michael Goodman and Elizabeth Atkinson. Claudia sat down with a squeal as the other students began coming in,

"Aren't you excited, Caera? Only one more day after today and we'll be free!" Normally, this was an opportunity for them both to exclaim as an injoke, "Thank God almighty, we're free at last!" and laugh, but Caera wasn't in the mood to celebrate. And it wasn't just her leg that was bothering her...

Mrs. Winters called attention to the lesson a few minutes later, something which was usually hard to do, but today she had an exciting announcement to make.

"We're having a French exchange student next week until we break up for the Christmas holidays. His name is Francois Rochard. Now, I'm going to have to ask a couple of you to show him around the school and be his friend while he's here. He speaks very good English according to his resume. I think this will be an excellent opportunity for several of you to improve your French oral skills as well as make a new friend. Oh, and I'll need a place to put him up while he's here. Do I have any volunteers?''

Caera sighed. The real question wasn't if anyone would volunteer, but will the said volunteers score in Mrs. Winters' brownie point book? At least, Caera thought, that was the question all the suck-ups were asking themselves. The problem was, if anyone offered to show this Francois guy around, Mrs. Winters would probably try to pressure the poor, unfortunate soul into taking him in for a week, or worse, two. And a very persuasive person was Mrs. Winters. No one would be stupid enough to—

"Mrs. Winters, we wouldn't mind showing him around." Claudia suggested innocently. Mrs. Winters instantly rewarded her and Caera with a smile as bright as a flash on a camera.

Where did the 'we' come from?" Caera was wondering as Mrs. Winters asked if anyone was willing to take Francois in, noticeably glancing in the twins' direction. After a few minutes of silence, Mrs. Winters said rather disappointedly,

"Well, I hope you'll all let me know tomorrow if it's okay with any of your parents. I can give all of the particulars tomorrow to anyone who's interested."

Caera was glad when French class was over fifty minutes later. It wasn't that she disliked French; actually, she usually enjoyed it, and Mrs. Winters, despite her rather frosty sounding name, was warm and one of her nicest teachers. It was just that she already had enough to worry about, and Francois Rochard was definitely not on the top of the list.

François

The next day at school, a sense of excitement permeated the air, no doubt because of the Thanksgiving holidays. Claudia wondered whether or not everyone was feeling thankful in the true sense of the word, or if they were just glad to be missing three days of school, but then it didn't take much of a genius to figure that out.

In any case, everyone was in a good mood, for a real change, including the teachers. Even Mr. Hoffmeyer was in comparatively good spirits, assigning only three chapters to read in the history book over the holidays. For once, and for perhaps the first time ever, he wasn't wearing an old brown suit; instead, he strode across the room in mock seriousness (or was it?) in a black suit in the tradition of the Pilgrim fathers, and on his head sat a paper Pilgrim hat that some faceless, nameless student of his had made for him years before. At least the class was interesting, Caera mused as Todd Miller wedged his way out of the classroom, laughing with a group of his friends,

"Man, did ya gettaloada that geddup?"

Of even more interest, all the classes of the day were cut in half, so that they wouldn't miss the afternoon classes when the special Thanksgiving surprise that the teachers had planned began after lunch. In French, Mrs. Winters was overjoyed to hear that Emily Miles was offering to shelter the exchange student for two weeks. (And she was relieved that she wouldn't have to put him up in her house during his stay.) No one was surprised by this revelation, but Claudia was interested to know if anyone outside the immediate family could survive two weeks in the same house with Emily.

As for Mrs. Johnson, she decided to take a break from teaching that day in science and watch a film, and despite the holidays, she wasn't budging an inch on the school's policy about talking or chewing gum, or taboo of taboos--sleeping when the lights were low.

When Caera and Claudia got to English, they were astonished to learn that Mrs. Smith, the stout and robust, was absent. In her place was a substitute teacher, fresh from college, who neglected the participial pronouns for one day and led a discussion on the meaning of life.

Finally, it was lunchtime, and when the doors were thrown back, it looked like flood gates opening. Caera took one whiff of the smell of her lunch tray and reminded herself to go straight to the cafeteria after P E. on the last day before Christmas.

After lunch, everyone went to the gym, where the teachers had been planning their surprise. As the entire school filed in, Claudia, Ana, and Caera attempted to stick together and found a spot to sit on the floor. Principal Jenson stood up on the stage that was adjacent to the gym and announced over the loudspeaker that the high school drama class had prepared a special skit with a theme of giving to commemorate the holiday. Everyone stared blankly, that is, until the teachers started clapping and giving overt instructions that they were expected to join in. The curtains of the stage pulled back to reveal Erica Miles and Jason Robinson, and soon the applause thundered in earnest.

* * * * *

Early Thanksgiving morning, Ana and her family arrived at Grandmother Robinson's house in the heart of town. Great Aunt Vanessa greeted them at the door with such well-known expressions as "My, how you've grown!" and "Who does she remind you of, John?" whilst pinching Jason and Ana's cheeks. Behind her, Grandmother Robinson seemed eager to rush everyone inside since "there was a chill in the air" and "for goodness' sake, they'd all catch their deaths of cold".

Ana surmised from the many cars parked along the street in front of the house that most of her relatives had already arrived. Mrs. Robinson led them into the parlor, where several of Ana's cousins, aunts, and uncles sat glued in front of the boob-tube. Ana saw that her cousins Brian and Patrick had come; she hadn't seen them in years, and now she was getting more than a little worried about the changes time had wrought.

Brian was her age and Patrick was a year younger, yet the last time they'd met, Ana had been considerably taller and larger. Now Brian was at least six inches taller than she was, and Patrick was a good two or three inches taller. She only hoped that they weren't planning on exacting revenge for all those times when she—

"Ana, dear, why don't you go and say 'hello' to the girls.." her mother suggested dismissively.

"Sure, mom. Fine." After exchanging the necessary pleasantries, the women left for the dining room to "visit", and the rest of the assembled company sat down in the living room to watch the last half of the football game.

Five minutes later, Grandmother Robinson came back into the room to get some dishes; a delicious aroma of baking pies and candied yams simmering on the stove wafted through the open door. Just then, Jason got up.

"Grandma, do you need any help in the kitchen?" He was doing his best to sound altruistic.

"Why, thank you, dear. I guess I could use an extra hand." As Mrs. Robinson left, Jason trotted behind like an obedient dog.

"Wow, I sure wish Jason would help like that at home." Ana heard her mother say before the living room door closed, wondering herself how much of a help Jason would really be. More likely, he'd "help" himself to the pie!

The football game ended early, leaving everyone hours with nothing to do until dinner, andJason returned to the living room, having eaten the leftover pie fillings as well as sampling all the dishes in the kitchen.

"So, did Grandma get wise to ya and turf you out on your stomach?" Ana asked sarcastically as Jason came into the living room. She, Brian, Patrick, and their cousins Teresa, Margot, and Eden were trying to play a game of Monopoly, which could take forever if played under ordinary circumstances, but these were no ordinary circumstances. During the fifteen minutes since football game had ended, they had all gone around the board only once. It had taken five minutes to stop the arguing over who got to control the deeds or the bank, and this was only accomplished when Uncle Phil had settled the dispute by charging over and saying that they'd better stop arguing or he'd throw the game out of the window.

However, reassurances from Aunt Jacqueline said that he was only kidding, and everyone had begun to argue again about whether or not Free Parking should have five hundred dollars under it and if taxes should also be put there. Since it was Grandma Robinson's house, none of their conflicting "house rules" applied.

Jason insisted then on being allowed to play (since he was the oldest cousin there, they could hardly refuse), but about an hour later, the game was canceled when Patrick picked the board up and flung the playing pieces everywhere. (No monopoly game lasted long if you playd with Patrick.) He refused to play if Margot and Eden were going to cheat and team up, joining their finances so as not to go bankrupt. Hardly surprising, Ana thought, since Patrick was winning at the time.

After another argument (instigated by the offended parties and those whose prospects were starting to look good until the game's untimely demise), Uncle Phil reappeared and provided a diversion by volunteering them all to set the dining room table.

After the usual grumbling, which allowed the cousins to forget their own arguments for a while and gripe against a common enemy--the work as well as Uncle Phil--Jason got out the plates from high in the dinnerware cabinet and handed them to the others to set on the table.

They finished and came back to the living room to find their parents happily chatting away in the chairs which they had previously occupied, and after a few low-pitched mutterings, Margot suggested they all go upstairs to talk and fill each other in on their lives since last Christmas.

Half an hour later, grandma Robinson came in to announce that dinner was ready. Jason was the first out of the door, leaping up and stopping mid-sentence, leaving his audience gaping, as, within seconds, he was thumping down the stairs. Great Aunt Vanessa gave the traditional prayer before the meal began. Sitting next to Jason, Ana could hear her brother groan just as Uncle Bob began to stand up. It was a well-known fact in the family that he was long-winded, and Ana began to ask herself why she had agreed to come to the same Thanksgiving Dinner where he would be (not that she had much choice).

It was bad enough at Christmas to listen to Uncle Bob's speeches, much less at a holiday entirely devoted to giving thanks. After a five minute prayer, the customary small talk during the serving of the plates began, and Ana wondered for the umpteenth time that day what Caera and Claudia were doing.

* * * * *

Claudia stood behind her mother in the kitchen and cracked another egg for her pecan pie. The year before, Caera had gotten to make the pies, and Claudia had been stuck with the boring vegetables--the carrots, potatoes, and greens. As usual, Mr. Campbell had arisen at the "crack of dawn" (Mrs. Campbell often used this term when complaining about his habit) to prepare the turkey, which was now half-way done and filled the room with a savory smell. Since he'd put it in the oven, Mr. Campbell had been coming in every half an hour or so to check the temperature, complaining each time that he had to "dodge bodies" before heading back to the front yard.

Claudia found herself thinking about how sad it was that the rest of the world missed out on the particularly American holiday of Thanksgiving. Had it always been held on the third Thursday of November, ever since the Colonial Days? she wondered every year.

Claudia heard smacking sounds behind her and turned around to see her mother licking a syrupy spoon. Obviously, she'd finished crumbling the corn bread (her mother was from the South and always made corn bread stuffing, insisting that white bread stuffing was "too doughy") and had moved on to the candied yams.

"Gee, Mom, do you think you've got enough brown sugar on those yams?" Claudia pointed to the massive-mound where the yams were buried. Her mother threw a look over her shoulder before replacing the lid on the pot.

"I'm going to help your father with the lawn." After her mother left, Claudia sprinkled a few more pecans into the pie mixture and popped some into her mouth. Ana hadn't called on Wednesday, and here it was almost five o' clock on Thursday.

She figured Ana was probably busy with all of her cousins, but if she and Caera and Ana were going to get together on Saturday, Ana'd have to call and say when she could get away.

* * * * *

On Friday evening the phone rang, and Caera and Claudia raced to pick it up. On the other end, Ana had just gotten home after her three day stay at her grandmother's house, but she sounded none the worse for wear.

"You're never gonna believe this, guys!"

"What?" Caera and Claudia echoed each other in "stereo sound", a phrase someone at school had coined long before to mean that the twins were saying the same thing at the same time.

"Well, I was talking to my Uncle Max today. See, he and my Aunt Jean are really into antiques and old things, and on Wednesday they went with my Aunt Jacqueline, Uncle Phil, Aunt Margot, and Uncle Bob to look around town. "Seems they got a guide to all the historical landmarks while they were in the town tourist office. When I mentioned how we were going to check out some of the old buildings tomorrow, Uncle Max gave me the guide!"

"That was nice of him," Claudia was pleasantly surprised.

"Yeah, and it's really neat! For each house, it tells who built it and when, and what it's been used for over the years. I've already started marking the ones from the right time frame. I figure I can spend a few hours tonight and have them all checked over for tomorrow. "What time do you guys wanna meet?"

"Is nine-o' clock okay?" Caera suggested.

"Sure. How 'bout meeting by the old railway station?"

"Sounds fine by me. See ya."

"Bye."

* * * * *

Saturday morning arrived, wetter and chillier than any of them had expected. After her bout of pneumonia, Caera didn't especially feel like spending the day walking in the rain, but she and Claudia donned their raincoats and galoshes and conned their father out of ten bucks between them for lunch. And yet, it wasn't so much the weather that was bothering Caera.

Just what were they supposed to be looking for? She voiced the question as she and Claudia met Ana at the defunct railway station. Ana took this question literally and assumed she meant "Which house are we looking for first?", and whatever Caera had been trying to say, Ana took it as her cue to produce the guide book.

At least ten different places were circled on the title page. Claudia asked to hold it and squealed with delight, although Caera didn't see why she should be excited about trudging all over town for an untold number of hours. She wondered if they were going about everything in the wrong way. Claudia and Ana, however, seemed totally confident that something would present itself, and off they went toward the old General Store.

The search proved difficult. Only the outside of the general store remained, and two other old houses had been turned into department stores; every time they started looking in those, the shop attendant watched on with wary eyes. Others were museums whose rooms were made inaccessible by maroon velvet ropes and still more were private houses.

By six o' clock they hadn't seen all of the houses on Ana's list, but for all they had seen, there was no sign of anything that might lead them to Emma's diary, and no sign of her ghost. The situation was starting to look hopeless, and they parted ways with Claudia suggesting that they might put off the search for a while and see what happened.

Yet, though none of them admitted it, they had each privately decided to give up on the search altogether. What they didn't suspect was that the ghost of Emma Campbell wasn't about to let them.

Emma

On December nights the wind always seemed harsh, the rain biting. With each day the sun disappeared sooner, and the sky, cast over with clouds, was a frosty void as dark and scary as nothingness.

This night was no different. A thunderstorm was brewing outside, and the wind which blew over the house made it creak with forceful blasts. Then it subsided for a moment, retreating with a whistle only to swell again and lash out at the house, which had defied the storms for over two centuries.

Claudia snuggled deep under the covers and listened to the rain that had started to fall and was echoing in a way that sounded like the rush of a waterfall. A flash of light lit up her room, and a few seconds later, thunder bellowed out from the heavens. Sleep pulled at her now, beckoning her to another world, and it seemed she could hear someone calling...

"Help! Help me!" The voice appeared to come from behind the walls, from outside, from under the bed, and it resounded until she heard it all around her. Claudia was lying frozen now. A breathing sound sounded from somewhere near, almost in time with her but late enough for her to hear its echo as she held her breath. Suddenly very awake, Claudia felt afraid to close her eyes, and for what seemed like an eternity, her heart thudded in her ears.

The calling started again—"Help! Help me!"—but this time Claudia heard it sound in her mind. She wanted to scream, to run to Caera and wake her up, to call for her parents, to be safe at school during the daytime, because it was so dark...

Softly, in the midst of her terror, the sweet tones of a piano played a song she'd only heard in her dreams of Emma Campbell, and a laughter of all her joyous days sounded out, vulnerable against the roar that erupted in the night. The sounds seemed real enough to touch with her hand...

In an instant Claudia saw hands emerge from the darkness and move rapidly towards her face. As they grew nearer, she found that they glowed with a pale light, and cuffed sleeves fluttered like gossamers around the wrists. As they clasped around her throat, she glimpsed the twisted face of their owner for one final time.

The hands constricted around her throat, one sharp stone of a ring gouging into her neck.

Claudia screamed, but her scream was cut off. She couldn't breathe, and the hands were strong as vices.

They were strangling her.

She tried to gasp. No air came.

But this time, she feared she wasn't dreaming. The ghost hands had her, and they were going to kill her.

Suddenly the bedroom door burst open.

"Claudia!" Caera called, staring wide-eyed at the ghost hands that had locked around her sister's throat. Without a thought, she raced toward her sister and grasped her, pulling her from the bed.

The ghost hands fought to hold on, then let go. Claudia scrambled to her feet, fully awake now. The twins stared as the ghost hands disappeared.

"Claudia, did you see that?!" Caera cried in fear.

"Yes," Claudia said. "He--he almost strangled me!"

"Claudia--listen!" Caera said, trying not to breathe too loudly.

They heard a sound echoing from the window outside and went to look outside.

"Let's go look and see what it is," Caera suggested, attempting a show of bravery.

"Are you crazy?" Claudia demanded, for once content not to be reckless.

"Claudia, something just tried to kill you. Don't you want to see what it is?"

Claudia thought a moment, then nodded reluctantly. After all, if they didn't do something, there was a chance the hands would come back, she told herself.

"All right," Claudia said. "Let's get a flashlight and check it out."

With that, Claudia slipped on her slippers and reached for the flashlight she'd kept under her bed since the lights went out in October. Then she followed Caera downstairs and outside onto the ice-cold lawn.

"What are we looking for?" Claudia wondered.

"Whatever made that sound," Caera said, as though the answer were obvious.

"What if it's the ghost of Emma's murderer?" Claudia asked fearfully. Caera stared at her, then gave her a quick hug.

"We'll be okay if we stick together," Caera said, wishing she was as certain as she sounded. "I think the dreams only have power over us when we're asleep."

"Caera!" Claudia blurted suddenly. Caera turned to look at the back lawn where Claudia was pointing.

A faint luminous form appeared in the air before them. It was the ghost of a young girl in a Colonial dress, and she was staring at them.

Caera and Claudia felt the hair rising on the back of their necks as they came to an abrupt halt. They held their breath, both of them too terrified to make any kind of movement.

"Emma?" Claudia ventured softly. "Are you Emma Campbell?"

The ghost didn't speak at first.

Then, with a horrific little wail that sent shivers down the twins' spines, she cried, "Save me! He's after me, after me..."

"What is she seeing?" Caera asked now, with growing alarm, as she felt a chill bite descending in the air around them.

"I don't know!" Claudia cried, feeling the same creeping cold of the supernatural presence in their midst. "Maybe she sees her killer coming!" She and Caera instinctively grasped each other and held the other tightly.

"Who is it, Emma? Who's after you?" Caera dared to ask as the twins watched the ghost of Emma Campbell moving inch by inch nearer.

Instead of answering Caera, the ghost of Emma just gasped. And then she gave a desperate little cry. her luminous form abruptly jerked to the side. Caera and Claudia watched, horrified, as she twisted and writhed as though she were being strangled. Then the ghost fell to the ground and lay quiet. The luminous form faded, and Emma Campbell disappeared.

After a moment, Caera and Claudia remembered how to breathe.

"Is it safe to move, do you think?" Caera whispered.

Claudia nodded weakly.

"Claudia, did we just see what I think we saw?"

"If we both saw it, it had to be real this time." Claudia whispered back.

"Emma's ghost!" they both exclaimed.

"What if she comes back?" Claudia wondered. "What should we do?"

"Tell Mom and Dad?" Caera suggested.

"They'll never believe us," Claudia replied. "Grown-ups don't believe in ghosts."

"I guess," Caera nodded. "Claudia, I'm afraid."

"Me, too."

"Claudia, you don't think Emma wants to hurt us, do you?"

"I hope not."

"Maybe she's angry at us for giving up on the search for her diary." Caera suggested.

"Maybe." Claudia agreed.

"We promise we'll start looking again, Emma," Caera suddenly cried out into the night. Just be patient with us," she added. "We're doing our best."

Then they both listened for a sign from Emma that she had heard Caera, but there was no answer in the silence of the evening.

"You think she heard us?" Caera whispered.

"I guess we'll know soon enough," Claudia replied.

* * * * *

The afternoon of the Christmas Party finally arrived. Ana's mother took Ana and the twins to the Campbell's house after school, and she handed Ana a plastic bag containing her Halloween costume before saying goodbye. The invitations had said that it was going to be a "fancy dress party", but she hadn't had enough money to get a new costume just for the occasion.

What was more, asking her mother to buy one was a no-go situation since her Halloween outfit was a multi-colored harlequin suit that could be used without anyone (except maybe the people who lived on her street and had seen her trick-or-treating in it) knowing that she hadn't bought it just for the Christmas Party. Ana briefly wondered how many other kids would turn up as witches or vampires when their parents wore new costumes before following Caera and Claudia inside and up the stairs to Caera's room.

Caera searched her bottom drawer before lifting out last year's pirate costume and was muttering something about her boots being too small as she disappeared into her closet. When she re-emerged with them a minute later, she flounced on the bed and tried to yank one on.

"Ouch. I don't believe this. What a bummer!"

"Too tight?" Ana laughed.

"I'll say. Maybe I can cut off a toe or something."

"That's not funny, Caera. Knock on wood." Claudia was looking supremely worried.

"Here we go again. I'm not as superstitious as you, Claudia." Nevertheless, she knocked the wooden frame of her bed, just to be safe. Ana and Claudia didn't hear it, though, because at that moment, Mrs. Campbell knocked on Caera's door.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure, mom. Whaddaya want?"

"I was hoping I could ask you three to help me get some things out of the storage room for the party. Your father and I are almost done with setting this place up, but there are still things to do and we only have a few hours."

Caera and Claudia agreed and hurried down the stair. The living room was decorated in snowflakes, bright with tinsel, and awash in reds, greens, yellows, and blues. Caera and Claudia privately wondered how on earth their mother thought she needed more decorations.

Once they got to the storage room, Mrs. Campbell told the three girls to wait in the doorway and went off to rummage through for something.

"What do you need our help for mom?" Claudia called across the room. Mrs. Campbell didn't say, but only called them over to her.

"I need someone's help to wear these..." Caera heard her mother's voice trail off suspensefully as she opened a large box. Inside were the antique dresses that they had found months before in the attic, and they had apparently been cleaned, mended, and dyed, for they looked as good as new.

"Surprise!" For a moment there was a stunned silence and then all three girls screamed at the top of their lungs. Caera was the first to speak.

"All right mom! Which one do I get to wear?" She was jumping up and down and could hardly contain her excitement.

"I thought the blue dress should go to Claudia since she's the one who found it, and you and Ana can choose one from the rest. Now, no fighting, girls," she saw fit to add the last comment.

"Who us?" Caera echoed in tones of disbelief. "Since when do we ever?"

Mrs. Campbell just laughed hard, shaking her head before she left.

* * * * *

"Hurry up, Caera! The guests'll be arriving any minute now!" Claudia and Ana called from the hallway. Caera pulled on the long, elegant white gloves that she and Ana had found while rummaging in the closet and quickly hurried out of her room. Stopping at the stairway, she paused dramatically before slowly descending, her hands just itching for a feathered fan.

Just then the doorbell rang. Caera hurried down the rest of the way and stood beside Ana and Claudia while Mr. and Mrs. Campbell went to get the door. A minute later, the Robinsons came into the living room where Caera, Ana, and Claudia had gone to sit down (as well as they could) on the sofa.

"Oh, it's just your family, Ana." Caera whispered as all three girls relaxed. It was still a few minutes until seven, the time when the party officially began. Most of the furniture in the living room had been moved back to clear space for people to dance, although Caera felt she would need the whole room for herself just to turn around. Yup, she decided, old dresses were definitely not designed for mobility. The dress was even uncomfortable.

Why hadn't that surprised her? she wondered, then remembered that she had worn one as Emma in her dreams.

Mr. Campbell had chosen to be Peter Pan this year, (someone near and dear to his heart), and his costume looked good, even though it was strange for everyone to see him wearing green tights. Mrs. Campbell had decided to be the Sugar Plum Fairy, and she sparkled in a frosty white costume and silvery tights. Caera actually thought she looked more like Tinkerbell and wished she'd opted to be, since her father was Peter Pan.

As for Mrs. Robinson, she appeared as a giant size Alice while her husband, dressed in the costume of the March Hare, hopped along after her.

But Caera liked Jason's costume the most. She thought coming as a pirate was really dynamic! The leather outfit was as black as a pirate's heart was rumored to be. The blousy white shirt with long sleeves wasn't bad either, Caera thought.

When the Robinsons arrived, Jason remarked that Ana didn't look like the sister he knew and loved? (which was as close to a compliment as he could give her), while to Caera and Claudia he merely said, "You guys look... nice."

Actually, Jason was having difficulty with the fact that his sister and her little friends didn't look so little anymore, (Caera supposed it was because it made him feel old), so while his mother fawned over "how lovely the material was" and "how much she always wanted to wear dresses like these", he made his way over to the punch table, poured himself a glass, and took a few slices of cherry cake.

At that moment, the doorbell rang again, just as the clock in the living room chimed seven. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell and Caera went to the door to greet those who had arrived--a party of ten or twelve people, at the head of which were the four Summits, ( Caera was surprised they hadn't made it there before the Robinsons) and introductions were in order since the Campbells had never met Mr. and Mrs. Summit.

Mrs. Campbell could have sworn that she was shaking hands with the real Lois Lane--somehow Mrs. Summit's camera hung so naturally around her neck, but Mr. Summit looked a bit ridiculous as a major league baseball player. Behind his parents, Christopher was wearing a native American Indian costume with leggings, moccasins, and a vest.

Somehow, Marie had gotten hold of a spectacular Cleopatra outfit that Caera was particularly jealous of. Marie even had a black wig and an Egyptian headdress.

The other people wore the usual gamut of witches, pumpkins, black cats, animals, vampires, and super-hero costumes. And once these guests were welcomed, everyone headed to the living room, the dining room, or the den, and a low buzz of conversation was soon audible.

As Christopher Summit turned around and asked Caera whether or not anyone else had already arrived, she was forced to re-appraise him. She definitely had not been paying attention when he came in, she decided. He was definitely a looker, and though he was too old for her, looking didn't hurt!

"Nope, just the Robinsons. Y ou guys are the first to get here." Caera said casually as they all came into the living room. As if noticing for the first time, Chris said,

"Wow, Caera, that dress looks really good."

"Really?" Now don't go blowing it by putting your foot in your mouth, Caera! she told herself.

Chris talked a while and then left to get some punch. As Caera looked around the room, she noticed Marie heading toward the punch table where Jason was helping himself to the divinity and fudge, and she edged closer to hear them.

"Hello." Marie was saying as she gave him a winsome smile. Caera giggled and pitied the prey before going over to where Claudia and Ana were signaling her to come.

Ten minutes later, as the doorbell rang again, Caera seemed to remember that her parents were in the den serving champagne to the older guests, so the three girls went to answer the door. When they opened it, Mrs. and Mr. Miles paraded past, or rather, Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio. (Caera wondered why she had imagined that they were coming as Marie Antoinette and Louis the Fourteenth.)

Behind them were Emily and Erica, the latter of which looked like a picture-perfect Snow White. Emily Miles was dressed as Sleeping Beauty (at least, Caera thought that was who she intended to be), wearing a blue ballgown that looked too big for her. (It had probably either previously been her mother's or Erica's). Her hair was in ringlets with a tiara holding it behind her ears, which somehow, Caera thought, made her look more like Goldilocks.

Emily's eyes narrowed in acute jealousy as she came in and saw Ana and the twins' costumes. As they had guessed, Emily had been hoping that her own costume would be the best. Emily said nothing as Erica exclaimed,

"Wow, your costumes are really great! Where did you get them? They look so real!"

"They are," said Claudia. "We just had them restored."

"That's great," Erica said, but she was soon swept along by the current of newcomers.

A minute later, just when Caera was about to close the door, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart came in; Mr. Stuart was dressed as Elvis Presley and his wife wore a black bouffant wig in imitation of Priscilla Presley. George followed, miserable in a Count Dracula costume which Caera was sure he had worn for Halloween, and behind him David dashed forward rakishly. Caera wasn't sure who he was supposed to be in his Renaissance costume, sword, tights, and all, but she figured with his disposition he must have been dressed up as Romeo.

"Oh look, Ana! Here comes Todd Miller!" Claudia exclaimed as she peered at the end of the line near the door. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were approaching on the front pathway, wearing Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee outfits. Todd was supposed to be Prince John, Claudia noticed, if Alex and Andrew (who followed close behind) provided any clues. Alex was none other than Robin Hood, complete with hat, bow and arrow, and green tights! (Claudia thought that he and her father might have an interesting conversation.) Behind, Andrew seemed uncomfortable as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Although the girls had no way of knowing it, Alex and Andrew had been fighting all afternoon over who got to be Robin Hood, but in the end, the dispute had been settled by a coin.

As Alex, Andrew, and Todd came in, they all immediately noticed the girls' costumes, which was nothing new to the girls by this point. Todd managed to say,

"Wow, Ana! Great threads! Uh, I mean, it looks really nice... Um, excuse me," before fleeing to the safety of the living room, throwing over his shoulder at the last minute,

"See you guys."

Andrew's mouth had been open, for a put-down no doubt, but all he said was, "Yeah, pretty cool duds. " Alex just stood staring at Claudia, unable to fathom out the reasons why he had suddenly become so uncomfortable.

As yet more people came in, the Davenports continued downstream. Coming upstream through the door were a few adventurous souls garbed in original outfits. Michael Goodman was a wizard, possibly Merlin, and he wore a fake beard and a star-studded silver and purple robe, while Brian Goodman (Caera wasn't sure if they were cousins or what) looked absolutely demonic in his red Devil costume. Really good for a Christmas Party, Caera thought, laughing at his nerve and audacity.

Justin Porter fit the occasion better in his elf costume, complete with hat, bag of toys, and green tights! (Caera wondered if green tights were going to be the theme for this year's party. Was the Green Lantern to be next?) Justin's sister Amy, only ten months younger than him and also in the seventh grade, was leaning on him, the reason being soon made clear. Amy had come as Cinderella, and after Justin broke away from her, she hobbled around for a while, probably only wearing one glass slipper.

Jessica Ford was behind Amy as Little Red Riding Hood, a wicker basket hanging from her hand. Jessica had expressed a regard for Mrs. Campbell's brownies and cherry cake the year before, Caera remembered, eyeing the basket suspiciously as Jessica sprang past.

Five minutes later, it appeared as if all of the guests had arrived, including the twins' parents' friends, some of which Caera and Claudia didn't know, so Claudia, Ana, and Caera headed back to the living room where the dance music was just starting up. In a corner of the room, Emily and Marie sat together, watching Jason Robinson as he tried to ignore them. On seeing his sister come in, he leaped up and asked her to dance, whispering in her ear that she'd better do it or else, and she said goodbye to the twins.

Emily and Marie watched, scowling as Jason and Ana whirled past, and considering the expressions on their faces, Caera was surprised when Brian asked Emily and Justin asked Marie to dance. Both of them shrugged and looked at each other and then accepted, and soon nearly all of the assembled company was swaying to the beat.

Caera was getting restless (after all, there was only Claudia left to talk to), and she went over to the punch table to refill her glass; as Caera turned around, she bumped into Christopher Summit, who had just re-entered the living room. Luckily, she managed not to spill any punch on him, but she did manage to bowl him over with her hoop skirt.

Caera helped him up, apologizing profusely, but Chris didn't seem to mind, and after looking around he said, "Hey, ya wanna dance?"

"Uh, I guess so." Caera tried not to sound too thrilled and smiled demeurely.

At the other end of the room, Claudia hoped her sister wouldn't embarrass herself as Caera and Chris moved onto the dance floor, noticing Andrew following them with his eyes. When the dance ended, Claudia saw Jason Robinson approaching her.

"Claudia, y'wanna dance?" Jason grinned, and if Claudia hadn't known Jason as well as she did, she might've even been flattered. All she said though was,

"Sure. I got nothin' better to do with my time." Jason mocked a hurt expression, while behind him, Ana was looking anxious and broke in gloomily,

"Todd hasn't asked me to dance, Claudia. I really don't even know if he likes me in the slightest, but—"

"Why don't you just ask him, then? He's probably too embarrassed."

"You think so?"

"Sure."

"Okay, I guess the worst thing that can happen is for him to refuse." As Ana went over to ask Todd Miller to dance, she saw the Davenports sitting by themselves.

"Whatsamatter, guys?" she asked them.

"Oh, nothing." Andrew said sarcastically. "We just love sitting around and watching everyone else have a good time."

"Why didn't you guys dance with Jessica and Amy when they asked you?" Ana hadn't seen Todd come over, but he suddenly appeared beside her.

"We didn't feel like dancing then."

"Yeah." Andrew nodded. As Alex and Andrew continued to stare into the crowd, Ana looked at Todd and fidgeted before asking him to dance, a proposition he accepted.

At about eight o'clock, Mrs. Campbell brought her prize Christmas cake in ceremoniously, and those people who weren't socializing or still dancing began lining up for a piece. Caera and Claudia had switched dancing partners several times but were getting tired, so Ana met them, and all three girls went to get a piece of cake. While they were standing in line, Claudia narrowed her eyes and nudged Caera's elbow.

"We saw you dancing with Christopher Summit, Caera."

"Isn't he too tall for you, Caera?" Ana asked.

"And maybe just a little too old?" Claudia added, grinning.

"Well, I think he just asked me to dance 'cause he remembered me from the survival trip and felt sorry for me 'cause he'd heard I'd been sick or something."

"Well, I guess that'd be about the only reason," Claudia smirked, and Caera batted her on the arm, unable to exact thorough revenge in the cumbersome dress she was wearing, but it could wait until later.

Caera picked up a plate then as the line ended, and she looked for the largest piece of cake, which she lost no time in finding or in putting on her plate. Later, when Ana and Caera were still eating, Claudia sat back in her chair with her hands crossed in her lap. She was getting pretty dozey, but she was soon jolted by someone suddenly jumping in front of her and by a bright flash of light that blinded her at about the same time as she heard the "click" of a camera shutter.

Blinking, she thought she could make out Marie Summit standing in front of her with her mother's camera. Claudia had seen Marie traveling around the room, taking pictures of various costumes which she would probably publish in the school's newsletter when it was time to go back.

Marie disappeared, and in a minute or so, Caera and Ana were done with their cake. Corey Richardson, who was dressed as a scarecrow, came over and asked Claudia to dance, while Caera and Ana were asked by Brian Goodman and Justin Porter.

After three glasses of punch, Caera suddenly began to feel woozy and had to sit down for a while. Brian asked if he could get her something to eat, to which she replied,

"Why, yes, Charles, I think you may."

"Huh?" Brian said, shaking his head, and hoped Caera wasn't going crazy until he got to the punch table and spied Brian Anderson spiking the fruit punch with rum. He realized then that Caera had had several glasses and burst out laughing before finding Mr. Campbell and ordering a cup of coffee for her.

After drinking the coffee and eating some snack sandwiches, Caera felt a little better and got up to tell her mother about what had happened to the punch, on the way spying Jessica Ford secretly slipping three large slices of cherry cake into her basket under the snack table.

Mrs. Campbell took in the information calmly. She served the punch into glasses (which were distributed to willing persons over the age of twenty-one) and brought out a new batch of punch to refill the bowl. Caera didn't see Brian Anderson with any more alcohol and figured he'd have to make due with what was available.

One and a half hours later, the party was coming to a close. Some of the younger children were asleep on their feet or on the floor, but for the most part, everyone had separated into groups and were still talking past midnight. Needless to say, the adults and their children seemed to polarize away from each other into different rooms, but finally, at about twelve thirty, those people who lived farther away left for home.

Mr. and Mrs. Campbell got up and went to the door to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the departing guests, but their daughters remained in the living room, lacking the motivation to dislodge themselves from the sofa.

Gradually, even those who lived more close by left or expressed intentions to do so. Caera and Claudia said goodbye as Brian Goodman and Justin Porter's parents came in to get them, and though Amy Porter was busy talking to Marie Summit, she was insistently pulled away. Michael Goodman and Todd Miller left next, followed by Corey Richardson and Ellison Davis, who took several minutes searching for her nose (she had come as a clown.)

At about twelve forty-five, only the Davenports, the Robinsons, the Summits (who were always the last to leave), the Fords, the Stuarts, and the Miles were left. As the Stuarts left, Jason thought he had his chance to go over and talk to Erica Miles, who had hogged David Stuart all evening and he her, but his attempts were thwarted as Mr. and Mrs. Miles came in and announced that they were also heading home.

As Emily passed Mrs. Campbell, she looked back longingly at the snack table. Mrs. Campbell, always quick on the uptake and above average in generosity, went to the kitchen and came back with a box containing one cherry cake and several pieces of divinity. Emily's face brightened, and after Mrs. Miles was assured that "there would be no problem", Emily promptly stowed the box under one arm protectively, indicating to the company as well as to her family that she didn't mean to share.

While this was going on, the Fords also decided to leave. Jessica got up from where she, Emily, and Marie had been talking and went over to the table to lift her basket. Caera noticed Jessica strain and turned to see if her mother had seen, guessing that she had, since her mother was smiling broadly, as if flattered in some way.

The Davenports were right behind the Fords; Mrs. Davenport saying again how much she had enjoyed the evening since it seemed her husband was too tired and her children were not going to speak. Alex and Andrew stood behind their mother uncomfortably until she got the message and said one final goodbye.

The Robinsons had offered to help the Campbells put all of the extra food away, and they all left for the kitchen. Since they didn't come back right away, Caera concluded that they must be talking--she hoped not about her, Claudia, or Ana. As for the Summits, especially Mrs. Summit, they didn't appear in a hurry to leave. They'd probably stay until everyone else had gone, and in the meanwhile they spread themselves out, Mr. Summit wafting towards the kitchen, and the Summit children staying in the living room with the others. (Mrs. Summit was nowhere to be found.)

Jason seated himself next to Claudia (trying to avoid Marie), but Marie sat to his other side and Ana wedged herself between Claudia and Caera, who sat next to Chris. After an uncomfortable silence, Claudia left to find a pack of cards, and when she returned, Marie suggested they play hearts. But, they didn't have time to get a game going because Mrs. Robinson came in and announced that it was time to go, and Mrs. Summit re-appeared just behind her, telling Marie and Chris that they'd "best be moving along", too.

So, in a few minutes, Caera and Claudia saw Ana off as Marie got her coat and waved goodbye to Jason through the front window. Mrs. Summit was busy thanking Caera and Claudia's parents and telling them how much she had enjoyed "this interesting little get together" when suddenly she asked to take yet another picture of everyone to "commemorate the evening". Caera wasn't sure when Mrs. Summit had reclaimed her camera from Marie, who'd had it for the duration of the party, but after they had all squeezed in close, the Summits left, and the Campbell clan breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them.

The Curator

That night Claudia and Caera telephoned Ana, who was expecting the call and had been waiting near the phone since she got home.

"Did you find out what time the Davenports' party is, Ana?" Claudia had partially suggested that Ana ask Todd to dance because she knew that when he was embarrassed he let his mouth run, and she was hoping he'd divulged some of the details to Ana.

"Yeah. It's gonna be at seven o' clock, and I think their parents are leaving for a banquet in town at about seven-thirty. So I guess we can start looking about then, 'cause the boys will be inside, doing whatever it is that boys do at slumber parties, and if theirs are anything like my brother's were, they'll probably be too busy stuffing themselves, playing video games, and boasting to hear us."

"We'd better hope so." Claudia wanted to be optimistic, but the Davenports made it their business to thwart them wherever possible, and even though they didn't know what the girls were planning, she figured that this particular trait of theirs would be on auto-pilot.

"So what time do you want us to come over, Ana?" Claudia wondered if Caera was always as nonplused as she sounded just now.

"Around six. And bring an appetite 'cause my mom thinks you guys are coming over for dinner."

"Really? Well, what are you guys having for—"

"It doesn't matter, Caera. Ana, do you have a black outfit? We need to dress so they can't see us."

"I think I could scrounge for one."

"Good. Caera and I'll bring a shovel, a flashlight, and my dad's toolbox."

"Okay, see you then."

Emma had just returned from a walk in the woods behind the house. The afternoon had been enjoyable until the sun had disappeared and a storm brewing outside had forced her to return home. As the winds picked up, she quickened her pace. Mrs. Brodie would have gone home by this late in the day, she realized. Mrs. Brodie was an old friend of her mother's, and she had been coming in once a week to keep her father company and look after Emma since Emma's mother had died.

But to Emma, she was more than an affectionate godmother. She was the only mother figure she remembered. Visiting every day without fail since her own husband passed away, she had of late become almost a permanent member of the family, and a welcome one at that.

Emma entered the house through the back entrance, stopping only once to pat Barney in the stables, feed him a carrot, and wish him a good-night. As she stepped into the kitchen, she pulled off her gloves and cloak and lit a lamp to see while she ate her supper. But after hanging up her cloak, she turned around, all at once frozen in her tracks. Papa's dinner was still on the table—the bread was only half-cut, and the stew was stone-cold. A cold dread swept over her.

"Papa? Papa!" There was an uneasy silence in the house as the echo of her own words reverberated from room to room. Outside, Emma could hear the wind subside a moment, only to rise up again to a feverish pitch. Taking the lantern in her hand, Emma flew from room to room, calling out to her father and praying that he was all right. But as she cast light into the dark rooms with her lantern, the shadows seemed to mock her, heightening the fear tingling through her every limb.

Emma came into the parlor and held her lantern high, but her father was not there, and the fireplace was empty. She called louder, searching room by room until she felt an icy draft coming in from his study; the door was flung wide open and all was darkness within. Emma entered slowly and laid the lantern on a small table, intending to close the windows and shutters.

The curtains made a whipping noise in the wind, blowing by gale force into billows of scarlet velvet. They seemed to point to something, straining on the rod which held them. Emma walked toward the window and saw the pool of blood on the floor. Horror shot through her as she saw the blood-slick body of her father lying behind his desk, and she ran over to him, bending on her knees beside him.

He was lying face-down, gored deep with the blade of a long hunting knife. In desperation, Emma gripped the handle and pulled it out, wincing at the sound of flesh on the blade, and with blood-smeared hands she carefully pushed her father over.

His lifeless eyes stared at her; stared through her to the wall behind, rigidly fixed in perfect stillness at the last thing that he had ever seen. She gently closed his eyes as tears fell in streams down her cheeks.

"Papa!" She cried in anguish to ears that could no longer hear, as the wind snuffed out the lantern's light and left her in darkness.

Claudia's eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her room was stone-cold, which made the bed infinitely appealing, but nevertheless, she got up and slipped on her bunny slippers, hoping that no one else was awake so that she could enjoy the quiet of the house by herself. No one was, even though it was already eight o' clock, and the kitchen felt incredibly lonely with the coffeemaker percolating for no one.

A few minutes later, a truck drove up, and Claudia heard a heavy thud on the slab out front. Time to rejoin reality, she thought as she went to the door to bring the newspaper inside. It was covered in a protective bag, although Claudia didn't remember hearing it rain the night before, and though she didn't usually read the paper (except for the comics), she slid off the bag and unfolded the paper. A photo of a smiling girl in a royal blue dress and blonde ringlets affronted her eyes.

"Poor Emma," she whispered, then leaned her head on the table and cried.

Somewhere in a dark and cluttered room, another copy of the local newspaper was being opened, and read.

"Campbell Christmas Party, by Marjorie Summit." The title of the article appeared in bold letters at the top of the page with the description of the event underneath, while the group picture that Mrs. Summit had taken on her camera appeared on the righthand side of the article, along with several pictures.

He read the names from left to right until he came to Claudia Campbell. Suddenly, the paper was thrown down, and its reader stood up and paced over to the wall.

A candlestick was pulled down, and a watercolor of ships in Boston harbor lifted to reveal a portrait of a beautiful young girl in blue.

After dinner with the Robinsons, Caera and Claudia followed Ana to her room where the three girls changed clothes.

"Did you notice this morning's newspaper, Ana?" Caera inquired as she squeezed her head through a thick, black turtleneck sweater.

"You betcha. I wanted to see if it was true what Marie said to me last night. She told me that after Chris and her dad were dropped off, she and her mother were heading for the presses. I guess gossip is more important to them than sleep."

In a few minutes Caera announced that she was ready to go, and Ana carefully pried open her bedroom window. In case her mother came in and worried about where they had gone, there was a note of explanation sitting on Ana's bed, although Ana's parents were watching a movie on t.v. and none of the girls really expected that they'd check up on them. The Davenports' house was only a little ways away, and in no time the girls were standing behind the house, ready to climb the fence.

Ana was over first, and the first thing that she noticed was a light on in what looked like the Davenports' living room. When she heard voices, she couldn't resist tiptoeing over and eavesdropping, especially after hearing her own name mentioned, but no sooner than she was half-way there, she heard Caera calling her back.

"And just what do you think you're doing, Ana? Do you want to give us away? They'll see you."

"You're the one who's gonna give us away if you don't lower your voice."

"Sshhh!" Claudia whispered, the fingers of one hand by her mouth to emphasize the word, the other hand wrapped around the shovel. Unfortunately, she was too late in quietening them. Soon the hall light and then the back door lights were thrown on, and footsteps could be heard coming towards the back door. Just as the door slowly creaked open, Claudia dove behind a rusty swing-set, and Caera and Ana flattened themselves behind two trees.

"...then you go first, Porter." Ana thought she heard Gerry Davidson.

"No way. You!" he barked back.

"I vote Alex and Andrew check it out, man. After all, it's their party, right?" This voice didn't need identifying. Caera knew by the words that it was Brian Goodman.

"Let's send Dudley," Todd opined, and Ana didn't hear Dudley object, or anyone else except Andrew, who Ana figured must have been his best friend, since he was adamantly against his going out into the back yard. For a few minutes, it was completely silent, and Ana was tempted to take a peek and see what was going on. Just then, however, she heard scrabbling noises near her.

"Uh oh! He's found something!" From far off, Ana could hear the sound of fast retreating footsteps. All of a sudden, something wet, slobbery, and heavy knocked her over, and she screamed,

"Help! Get it off of me!" She couldn't see because she'd brought her arms up to protect her face, but she felt something licking her ear and relaxed a little. Claudia and Caera had moved silently over to her and helped her up. Ana figured it was safe to open her eyes now. On the ground was a big, fat Basset hound, its tail wagging furiously as it howled.

"Hey," Andrew was considering, "I recognize that voice. It's Ana Robinson! What's she doing in our back yard?" Alex and Andrew, the only two boys left outside, looked at each other and ran over to where they'd heard Dudley howl.

"Uh-oh!" Claudia looked up to see them coming, but it was too late to run and jump over the fence. Besides, she figured that the dog would follow them and bark even louder if they tried. A few seconds later, Alex flashed a flashlight into her eyes, and she covered them with her hand.

"Hey, it's Claudia... And Caera, too!" Alex's voice betrayed surprise.

"What are you guys doing here?" Andrew demanded, but Alex caught a glimpse of the shovel Claudia was trying to hide.

"Are you still looking for that treasure? Gosh, what are you looking in our yard for? Hey, if it's in our yard, then it's ours!"

"It isn't here, dummy." Ana scolded him.

"Well, can we help you if you tell us what you're looking for? After all," he stroked his chin, "You uh, you are dressed as thieves, and this is," he paused dramatically, "our back yard. You could be here to steal something, couldn't you?"

None of the girls had time to reply to this threat, however, as just then Todd Miller called out,

"What's going on, guys? Who'd you find?"

"Just a neighborhood kid!" Alex yelled back (which it was). "We'll be back in a few minutes, after Dudley's finished doing his business." This seemed to satisfy Todd, and the door clicked shut. From the doorway, Andrew motioned that he wanted to go back inside.

"Come back on Monday," Alex had taken on a commanding tone, even though he was whispering. "Someone might see you here if you stay any longer."

"Well, that's already happened." Caera threw back.

"Tell me about it." Ana agreed.

"What I'd like to know is just what you two hope to get out of this." Claudia looked skeptical.

"I dunno." Alex pretended to be considering, "Maybe a share in the treasure if you find it."

"Fat chance." All three girls sounded in unison.

"All right, but come back Monday. I still wanna help you." He started back towards the house with Andrew and Dudley but threw over his shoulder, "Remember now, Monday. 'bout ten o' clock."

"Oh boy. This is just great." Ana sounded about as deflated as a balloon.

Monday morning at ten o' clock, Caera, Claudia, and Ana were making their way to the Davenports' front door. An hour earlier, Caera and Claudia had cycled their way to Ana's house. Overnight, the temperature had dropped, and Caera and Claudia had bundled themselves up against the cold. Once they had de-frosted their ears, toes, and fingers and Ana was ready to leave, the three girls headed to the Davenports', crunching the frost-covered grass with their galoshes as they walked.

Caera was the first to reach the doorstep, and she rang the doorbell, shivering now that she had stopped moving. A few seconds passed in silence, so she rang the doorbell again.

"Do you think they're here?" Ana asked doubtfully, noticing that the Davenports' car was gone.

"They'd better be," Caera was growing impatient, "I'd hate to stay much longer out in this. And besides, they invited us here. Even they couldn't have forgotten already. Caera hoped she sounded more convinced than she felt. Yet at that moment, they all heard slow, heavy thumping as if someone were coming downstairs. A few seconds later, the door creaked open, and they saw Andrew standing in his pajamas, his hair all mussed up, and his eyes half-open.

"Well, it's about time." Ana grumbled, watching as Andrew rubbed his eyes and tried to wake up.

"Hey, what're you guys doing here?" He inquired sleepily.

"Alex invited us. Don't tell us he didn't tell you." Claudia said in her most sarcastic voice, while peering through the doorway. "Where is Alex, anyway?" she saw fit to add.

"I dunno. Hang on a minute." The door shut, and a short while later, Andrew opened it again. "He's outside, I think. 'Said he'll be coming along any minute." Andrew stood looking at them a few moments longer. Claudia's nose was blue, and Ana was rubbing her hands. Finally, he asked, "Do you guys wanna come in?"

"Gee, I thought you'd never ask." Caera chattered through her teeth and pushed her way inside. As Andrew shut the door behind them, they all saw Alex coming down the hall. At that moment, Andrew took the opportunity to ask his brother what was going on, and Alex told him about their plans to work together to search for any clues concerning the treasure. In response, Andrew frowned and asked,

"Hey, what do I get out of it?"

"The satisfaction of a job well-done." Ana teased, quoting a well-known maxim of Mr. Hoffmeyer's.

"You can make us lunch if you don't want to help," Caera suggested off-handedly as she pulled off her earmuffs.

"No thanks. I'd rather help." While Andrew sulked, Alex pointed to the dining room.

"You can dump your stuff in there. I gotta go get something." As Alex left, Ana asked,

"Are your parents home?"

"Nope," Andrew informed them flatly as they all folded their coats and scarves. "They've gone to work and won't be back until dinnertime. You guys can wait in the living room till Alex gets back. I gotta go get dressed." He sprang away and hurried back upstairs.

Half an hour later, Alex, Andrew, Caera Claudia, and Ana trudged back down the attic steps, coughing and waving their arms through the air as the dust swirled around them, seemingly weightless.

"Great idea, Alex." Caera muttered and poked him in the side, while just behind her she could hear Ana complaining to Andrew and Claudia.

"Well that was a complete waste of time. I wonder if Alex has any more bright ideas." Alex heard her and took the clue.

"Actually, I do. I've already looked through the rest of the house, so there wouldn't be any point in doing that again, but we haven't checked the back yard or the front yard yet. Remember, that's what you guys were gonna do when we caught you."

"Of course we do. It was only a few days ago. Just what do you think we are, stupid?'! Caera was getting slightly irritable, Claudia noticed, and she wondered if it was because the dust was starting her allergies up again, a fact which she probably blamed on Alex for taking them up through the dust and fuzzy pink—insulation filled attic. Caera saw the hurt look on Alex's face and softened.

"Look, I'm sorry. Give us the deal already."

"Right. Well, take a look at this." Alex reached over to the coffee table in the middle of the hallway and lifted up a packet of paper. "These are the prints of the water, electric, sewer, gas, and telephone lines and pipes in the backyard. We'll have to dig around them, obviously. I figure there wouldn't be any clues underneath or near them anyhow, or they would have been discovered already.

"Oh, and we can't dig in the front yard. Dad had a sprinkler system installed last year. The pipes are a few feet deep, and according to what we learned in our geology unit in science class, there hasn't been very much soil deposited in this area during the past two hundred years. The way I see it, we'll only have to dig a couple of feet, tops."

"Well, that makes sense." Caera was agreeing. "I guess." Whoever said I was the hard one to please, Claudia wondered as they headed to the front hallway closet for their scarves and mittens. Claudia patted the brown paper bag that she, Ana, and Caera had brought along and followed the others outside.

Ana started digging, it having turned out that she had chosen the longest twig. As she raked the shovel back and forth and heaved at the clod of earth, she wondered fleetingly if it weren't made out of immovable clay. It was probably just lightly frozen, she decided when the crispy grass snapped and crackled as she lifted the dirt away.

The digging had to be carefully done so that when they finished they could re-construct the lawn and hope that Andrew and Alex's parents didn't notice. They had decided to pour hot water over the areas they were about to dig, to loosen the grip of the frost on the ground. Caera had to run inside every few minutes to put the kettle back on, and Andrew was steering a wheelbarrow in Ana's direction to deposit the dislocated soil as part of the plan. Ana swiped away a piece of hair that had fallen over her eyes and looked over to the patio to see Alex and Claudia laying down newspapers to put the grass-covered earth on.

After her turn, it was Claudia's turn, then Alex's, and then Caera's, and so on. By the time it was Andrew's turn, the lawn locked like Swiss cheese, and they were running out of places to dig. Three hours of sheer hard work had produced absolutely nothing, and the range of facial expressions varied from glum to accusing, doleful to hopeful.

Andrew was grumbling now, Caera heard as if from a faraway dream. His arms hurt, his back ached, he had a stiff neck, and what was it they were looking for anyway?... Eventually, someone blew the whistle and announced that it was time for lunch. Caera decided it must have been Alex and was suddenly jolted back into reality by Ana yanking her arm.

The five of them headed for the kitchen at the fastest pace it was possible to go while maintaining a semblance of nonchalance and devoured their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as quickly as courtesy and a sense of what looked bad would allow. After the sandwiches, milk, and Pepperidge Farm cheddar cheese fish-shaped crackers, Alex produced a chocolate cake from the fridge and passed out slices.

"Yum! " Ana enthused as she took a giant forkful. Since she was the first to dig, she got the first piece. Her appreciative remarks prompted the others to attack theirs upon receiving, and soon they all needed seconds. "Gosh, you guys, your mom's a great cook!" Ana announced as she finished her piece, the others unable to answer when their mouths were full.

"My mom didn't make it. Andrew did." Alex stated casually.

"Really? " Caera almost choked. Andrew blushed a deep scarlet and turned to take the lunch plates to the dishwasher. The others sensed his shyness ( and was it modesty? Caera was asking herself ) and headed back outside. Alex took one look around his mutilated backyard and sighed.

"This is just another disappointment. Like that cave I fell into." At the mention of the cave, Ana turned to look at Caera and Claudia, and a knowing look passed between the three of them.

"Hey... It's not fair to keep secrets if we're gonna help from now on." Alex complained.

"Well who says you were?" Caera demanded. Andrew was back now and stuck his two bits in.

"Come on, you guys. You never did tell us what you found out there. Or anything else for that matter," he waved with his index finger. "Like why it is we're even helping you to dig up our yard."

Caera sensed that at any moment they were going to withdraw their help and shot Claudia and Ana a look that said, "We might as well tell them. They're gonna twist our arms until we do," before launching into the details about the dreams and the books they'd found. She wore a relieved, almost self-satisfied expression as she finished, convinced that there'd be no more petty squabbles or accusations of withholding information.

"Come on!" Alex cut through her smile like a knife through cream cheese. "You expect us to believe that this stuff is clues? Talk about an overactive imagination."

"Waitaminute." Ana interjected. "We can prove some of it to you. "She ran back inside and re-emerged with the paper bag. Alex didn't know what to expect, but the uncanny resemblance between Emma Campbell and Caera and Claudia suddenly made him believe that anything was possible. But more than that, the possibility that the girls were proposing seemed almost... familiar?

"Wow!" Andrew's excited voice betrayed a note of credulity. "I'd say the picture was a photgraphic trick if it weren't a painting. And you guys say you're having dreams about her life?" Caera nodded.

"Weird!"

The group continued to dig, and by mid-afternoon every possible square foot of yard was uncovered, and although they didn't find anything, Claudia thought that at least now they'd eliminated the Davenports' as a place where there might be clues. The five of them made a concerted effort to restore the yard before their work was discovered, and Ana, Claudia, and Caera slipped away just as Mrs. Davenport's car slowly rolled up the driveway.

Late in the afternoon on December twenty-sixth, Caera and Claudia had gone to collect Ana at her house before heading to the Davenports'. It had snowed on Christmas morning, an event that had inspired Caera to wake up her groggy sister at six o' clock with a jubilant rendition of Bing Crosby's famous hit, "White Christmas", yet all that was left of the snow now were large cold puddles on the grass and damp sidewalks. When Ana came out, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled merrily as she slammed the front door and hurried to greet them.

"You guys'll never guess what I got for Christmas!" Ana said happily, clearly indicating that she wanted them to try anyway.

"Then we won't try," Claudia said in a wry tone.

Caera punched her.

"Yes we will," she said. "Clothes? Skis? A tv?"

"Nope--Even better. A puppy! Isn't that great?"

"What kind?" Caera raised an eyebrow.

"A collie. Actually, she's not just mine. She belongs to the whole family."

"What's her name?" Caera slapped her gloved hands together and rubbed them, using the friction to heat her frozen fingers. Ana's face darkened in frustration.

"Jason got to name her by using the same old argument—you know, about being older than me. He also told mom that he'd wanted a dog longer than I had to get his way. I wanted to name her Lassie, just like in the movies."

"Hmmm, original." Caera laughed. "So wat'd he name her?"

"Champ!" Ana admitted dolefully.

"Gee, it's not so bad." Caera teased. "Be thankful he didn't name her Fluffy. Or worse, Snowball." Caera's joke had them both laughing.

"Well, Claudia and I enjoyed our gifts this year. We got a couple of cellular phones--just for emergencies, of course. Of course, mom and dad had to cut back a lot this Christmas since they spent a lot of money having those old dresses repaired."

"Hey, but don't overuse those things," Ana advised. "I've heard some rumors about how dangerous they can be. But anyway, be thankful you didn't get ten pairs of socks and underwear. My Aunt Jacqueline sends me some every year. At least this time they were the right size for a change," she added.

"I wonder what the Davenports got for Christmas?" Claudia asked as the three girls marched up the pathway to the Davenports' house.

Ten minutes later they were sitting at the table with Alex and Andrew. Three minutes of silence had gone by since Andrew had asked what their course of action should now be, but no one had been able to offer any suggestions. Ana was about to ask if it was too late to go into town to show the boys the old houses they had visited when they all heard loud knocking at the front door which was followed by several impatient rings of the doorbell. Caera shot Andrew a questioning look as he got up to answer it, but she only got a shrug in response.

As Andrew opened the door, they all strained to hear the distant conversation. Andrew was whispering, but the other voice announced its presence loudly with a reverberating echo.

"Company? Well, surely one more won't hurt..." There was a short pause then, filled with the sound of soft whispers. No one at the table dared to even breathe.

"Come on you guys. I'm sure whoever's here won't mind me." At this point, Andrew seemed to have relented because they could all hear the door close and two sets of feet approaching. The louder voice increased in volume as it came closer to the kitchen, and the girls recognized it as belonging to Todd Miller.

"Great. What's he doing here?" Caera whispered. And why'd Andrew let him in? She asked herself. But she didn't need to ask. She knew that Todd was as good a friend to the boys as Ana was to her and Claudia. Moreover, she suspected that Andrew's hesitation had come from embarrassment.

"You know, I'm starting to worry about you guys," Todd was saying "you haven't come over in almost a week, and I noticed you've been acting strangely lately, ever since--hey, what're they doing here?" Todd turned into the kitchen, whereupon his face went red and his voice, as well as dropping several decibels, also lost any trace of bravado. He looked confused as he looked at Ana and then at the twins, and then finally at Alex and Andrew, as if waiting for an explanation.

Alex coughed, pointed out a seat for Todd, and began to tell him the story, beginning with the untimely visitors Dudley had found one night.

Mrs. Davenport opened the front door with her key and stepped inside, glancing at her wristwatch which said 5:55 as she laid down her briefcase on the floor of the entranceway.

"Boys?" She called, waiting for an answer, but one never came. Almost immediately, she heard giggling and loud noises coming from the living room. As she turned the corner into the living room, she saw the three girls sitting on the sofa, laughing hysterically while Todd made faces as Alex told a story. Every so often Andrew would interrupt to make sure Alex was telling it correctly.

Mrs. Davenport just stood, shocked, as her children finally turned around to see her in the doorway. "Hi, mom. You're home early." The boys stated casually. Their mother could only nod.

"Hello, girls," Mrs. Davenport said, smiling sweetly at Caera, Claudia, and Ana. Caera thought she could detect a "What's going on here?" tone to her voice, and, not wanting to have to stay and explain the situation, she replied,

"Hello, Mrs. Davenport. Don't worry about us, we're just leaving." Claudia and Ana followed her to the door. Todd and the Davenports were not far behind, and they stood and waved until the three girls were out of sight.

One morning a few days later Caera woke up shivering. Looking over to her alarm clock and seeing that she only had fifteen minutes left anyway until it sounded, she decided to head downstairs and see if anyone else was up. In the kitchen she found her father going through the larder. There was already a stack of cans on the kitchen table and her father appeared to be crossing items off a checklist.

"Whatchadoin?" she asked.

"I'm seeing if we have enough food to last us," her father answered without even turning around. Uh-oh, Caera thought, something about this scenario was all too familiar.

"And where's mom?"

"She's calling the road service people to see when they'll be able to start clearing the roads near us."

"Clearing the roads?" Caera wasn't really sure she wanted to know what was going on.

"Yes, sleepyhead. Take a look outside." Caera walked off towards the living room, rubbed a circle on the frosted window pane, and peered through. Outside the wind was howling fiercely, and the mailbox was invisible past the clouds of swirling snow. It was piling up, maybe even six inches by now.

"Welcome to January," she sighed and proceeded upstairs to inform her sister of the news. They might not be able to see Ana, Todd, and the Davenports until school started!

Clues

True to Caera's prediction, the snow didn't subside until the day before school began again. That had given Caera and Claudia only one day to get the copies of the clues made for the others, and they had only been able to accomplish this by finishing the process at their mother's office after the copy place had closed.

Right now, Caera and Claudia clutched three of the six packets each as they headed for Ana's locker at a brisk pace. They were a little late, Claudia observed, as the three boys were already there with Ana, shifting their weight from one foot to another and trying to look inconspicuous as people they knew filed past.

Caera and Claudia rushed over as soon as they saw them and handed the expected packets to Ana and their new "friends", but Claudia was worried. She wasn't sure that they should really be talking together so openly—after all, wouldn't people start to get suspicious when the Davenports and the Campbells, seemingly long-standing enemies, were now acting like all the years of squabbling didn't mean a thing?

Unfortunately, nobody else seemed to have thought about it, or if they had, didn't seem to care, as Claudia looked at Ana, who was whispering excitedly to Andrew, and then at Todd, Alex, and Caera, who were grinning from ear to ear after something funny that she said. Claudia then shifted focus and took a broad sweep of the hallway. Her eyes narrowed as she spied Amy Porter lurking in a corner about four yards away. Was she looking at them? Claudia felt that soon she was going to be a nervous wreck.

A few minutes later the bell rang, and after Ana left, Caera turned to Claudia and asked her to walk with her to first period. Claudia had hardly noticed when the boys had sauntered off, but it couldn't have been more than a minute before. She sighed in relief when it appeared Amy Porter was nowhere to be seen and followed Caera to class, unaware of what she had dropped on the way.

"Oh no!" Claudia pulled up abruptly by her sister and grabbed her arm. "I've dropped my packet of clues!" Caera looked confused for a moment and then smiled.

"Good one, Claudia. You almost had me for a minute there. But remember, I'm the one who tricks you most of the time, and take it from me, your face is a dead giveaway. Now come on and let's get to class before we get a detention."

"But I'm not kidding, Caera! I promise. I must have dropped it by Ana's locker! " Claudia insisted. Caera stood there a moment, scanning her sister's face and scrutinizing every detail.

"How could you just drop something this important?! Don't you know what could happen if the wrong person finds it?" Claudia shook her head, and Caera was about to say something more, but the halls were clearing fast. Instead, she grabbed Claudia and hustled to class, barely sliding into her seat before the bell rang.

That night Claudia tossed and turned in bed, unable to keep the lost packet out of her mind. Even after she and Caera had searched during lunch and for nearly an hour after school, it was nowhere to be found. Now she wondered if one of the others had accidentally been given two packets and prayed that this was the case. Anyway, the alternative was too worrying to contemplate.

When she and Caera got to school the next day, Claudia went directly to her locker and tried to carry on as if nothing had happened, but before she could get out her books for the morning, Andrew came rushing through the crowded hallway and approached Claudia and Caera, white-faced.

"Have you guys seen today's edition of the school paper?" The puzzled looks on both the girls' faces showed clearly that they hadn't, so Andrew held up the paper that he'd brought with him for them to read.

"'The Secret Campbell Treasure' by Marie Summit' –Oh no!"

"And that's not the worst of it"' Andrew flipped the page and pointed to the end of the article. "Look at this! "

"Let's see... 'If you want to know how you can help find it, contact myself, Amy Porter, Jessica Ford, Emily Miles, or any other members of the newspaper's staff and join our treasure party. The more people we have to help, the quicker we'll find it!"

"What are we gonna do?" Caera was nearing hysteria.

"Don't ask me," Andrew sighed in resignation.

"We can't just stand around moping." Claudia's determined outburst affected the others like a blanket of cold water. "We've gotta find it before they do!"

Marie Summit hated mid-year exams because it always seemed that all everybody wanted to do was study or complain about studying, even if they never intended to. They actually thought they were too busy to gossip—sacrilegious! At least she could count on Amy, Emily, and Jessica; they had their priorities straight. She knew that without their help she couldn't have made it until Friday—newspaper sales were down, and she needed all the help she could get to come up with new stories. After all there were such limited possibilities in a ho-hum, hum-drum middle school. She sighed. At least the nightmare week was at last over, and things could get back to normal.

Marie lounged back on her trundle bed and reached for one of several phones on her bedside table. Her room was one of the most comfortable places for her to work in--it had just the right ambiance. There were shelves in one corner for her thesaurus, encyclopedia volumes, and dictionaries, a chifferobe full of her favorite disguises by the wall next to the shelves, a t.v. and v.c.r. in a cabinet that included tapes of all her favorite news coverage--accidents, disasters, scandals, and more. Her room was so wonderful it overwhelmed her sometimes. Oh! She put the phone down. How could she forget?

Marie swung her feet over and onto the floor, rising and proceeding to her drawers. She gingerly lifted a tape recorder out of the third drawer and selected one of a few dozen tapes to insert inside it before returning to her bedside table and attaching the recorder to a machine her mother had given her for taping telephone conversations. She punched number one out of ten pre-set calls and was instantly in touch with Amy Porter.

"Are you ready, Amy?" she inquired languidly.

"It's still a bit early, isn't it Marie?" Amy sounded as though the call had just woken her up. "You told everyone to come over at nine. It's only seven o' clock."

"I meant everyone else. Look, I need to talk to you beforehand, get some things straight before everyone else arrives. Can you be here by eight?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

"All right, g'bye."

"Bye."

Forty-five minutes later Amy followed Marie into her room, eager to finally hear what Marie had been planning. All any of the group knew was that Marie's brother was going into the capital for something and Marie had managed to con him into taking them somewhere, but Amy still didn't know where or why, even though she liked to think of herself as Marie's right-hand person.

For a fleeting moment, she wondered if Marie had called her instead of Emily because it was she who had found the Campbells' packet of clues but thought better of it. Marie was a tough cookie and knew very well how far Emily could be trusted for anything.

Amy was anticipating a divulge of information when Marie closed the door to her room, but instead Marie merely asked for help in gathering and hiding her equipment for the next few minutes. This in itself proved a discovery—Amy hadn't imagined in her wildest dreams Marie's having a camera-in-a-purse or miniature pocket tape recorders, and her fingers just itched to open Marie's fourth drawer, marked "Gadgets". Finally, Marie finished preparing for the trip and broke the news.

"We're going to the museum," she announced flatly.

"What? You've got to be kidding me!" Amy couldn't imagine any place she wanted to go less.

"I didn't mean to seek intellectual enlightenment. Trust me, I have reasons. We're going to get ahead of the Campbells. I know they haven't thought of going there—" Amy shot an inquiring look— "Don't ask me how, it's incriminating."

Amy looked troubled.

"It's a joke, silly. Anyway, we Summits have our ways around that. As I was saying, a visit to the history section of the museum might prove useful. I have my mother's press card." This she waved in the air like a priceless gem before continuing. "Everyone knows her. She has connections, and I think some people are even a little afraid of her. We'll find out what we want to know. It'll be a cinch."

Amy nodded, glad to know more than anyone else did but still foggy as to Marie's motivations and innuendo. She suspected Marie only hinted at things out of habit, a cat-and-mouse game she'd learned from her mother. Marie wore a complacent look now. Sharing a secret must have been something she relished as much as keeping one. After a minute of silence, Marie's brain had finished working over her own personal intrigues and she asked,

"Well, have you noticed anything new with the Campbells and company? They were avoiding me yesterday." Marie humphed.

"Not much. I heard the six of them whispering outside after school yesterday. 'Seems they're worried about our looking for the treasure, but you expected that anyway. And that got me to thinking. When I read those clues it said 'only a true Campbell can discover what was lost' or something."

"That's right."

"Well, then how are we going to find it? I mean, what if, and this part gives me the creeps. I told you so at the very beginning, remember? The dreams. They're kinda scary, you know. It's like messing around with ghosts. Anyway, what if the Campbells were to get the rest of the clues just by dreaming them? We couldn't possibly do anything about that, and they're not gonna volunteer information or anything."

"Don't worry," Marie laughed enigmatically. "I've already got that under control."

The office was dark and musty, the only way in or out being a door behind a facade of filing cabinets in an adjacent room. There were no windows nor vents to clear the air, only cracks in the walls through which the wind whistled and called the aged wooden walls to creak and groan. In the center of the office was a bureau covered in yellowed newspaper clippings, bits and pieces of ancient artifacts, tools, and crumbling leather bound books, and the rest of the room appeared equally cluttered, although most of the items had been thrown haphazardly into crates to clear a walkway to its hidden door.

A man was seated at the bureau, his palms pressed to his temples in rumination. For a long time he supposed the dull noise of hollow echoes in his ears was coming from his own mind, but suddenly he discerned a child's laughter out of the other incoherent sounds and got to his feet.

In two strides he was peeping through a hole in the wall and into the neighboring room. No one had entered his inner sanctum; he felt along the wall for the switch to roll back the cabinets and stepped through.

The noise was louder in here, the unmistakable screech of sneakers on the polished floor of the museum being the most prevalent sound besides the cacophony of pre-adolescent voices. Everything in his room looked in order, and there was no sign now of the hidden room now that the filing cabinet was back in place. He should probably check out what was going on, he decided, and opened his office door, proceeding out to the voluminous museum. No sooner than the door was opened, a group of a dozen or so unruly children affronted his eye.

The children were several yards away, calling to one another or laughing, and a few were playing amateurish games that gave him a headache just to watch. One girl hunched over a display case caught his eye, however, with her business-like, almost professional mannerisms and the way in which the others followed her as a natural leader.

On closer observation, he realized that the display case she was inspecting contained pieces from the Campbell family's history: artifacts found in the old general store and original farm up to photos of the house in the early twentieth century. His eyes narrowed, and creeping up silently behind her, he noticed her emerald green eyes seemed intent on an old hunting knife dated around 1765.

"That's a very interesting piece, isn't it?" He broached the subject in a charming voice, cool, collected, and calm.

"What?" Marie looked up in surprise. "Oh...uh, yeah, it is." She looked as though she were about to walk away, and for a moment his eyes darkened to little coals, the smile appearing tight around the corners of his mouth.

"Excuse me. It's just that I am well versed in the history of this area besides being the head of this section of the museum, and I thought I might be able to answer any questions you might be having..." His voice sounded so open and friendly, Marie forgot her initial unsettling feeling around him, and after a moment's reflection couldn't believe her good luck.

This guy probably already knew a lot about the treasure and the mysterious events of the murders, and he was acting like a typical adult on an education crusade. As such she felt she could count on him to try really hard to get her interested, all the while telling her everything she needed to know if she steered the conversation just right. She reached for her satchel and pulled out the precious clue packet.

"I guess I have one or two questions you might help me with."

He seemed to be beaming now.

"Good."

* * * * *

On Monday morning, a buzz of excited voices filled the air just before first period. The mid-term examination results were to be posted that day, and the class with the highest grade point average in each department was to be awarded a free pizza party sometime during the next week.

On her way to her locker, Ana passed Mrs. Johnson's science room, where results of the exams were just being posted on the wall. They were listed in alphabetical order but without any names so as not to embarrass anyone.

Ana decided to look, remembering that she was fifth from the last when Mrs. Johnson did the roll call. As she found her grade, she felt someone come up behind her and half-turned to see Jessica Ford, who stood anxiously wringing her hands and chewing on her bottom lip.

"What's wrong, Jessica?" Ana asked sweetly, turning to Jessica to show her concern. Jessica looked at Ana for a minute and then glanced back at the list.

"Well, it's just... " she began hesitantly, "I can't figure out which one I am. I wanted so badly to get a good grade on this test. You see, I've been so busy recently, I didn't have that much time to study. My parents'll ground me if I get a bad grade!"

Jessica let forth this flow of words like a geyser undamed. Apparently, she'd needed to talk to someone badly.

"Well, I'm sure you did okay. You always do." Ana said consolingly, trying to sound sincere.

"I hope so, butcha know, I spent so much time last week at Marie's house, and well, my mind's been on other things... " her voice trailed off.

"Hmmm. I think this one's yours." Ana pointed to the list. She'd tried to remember how many people came before "Ford" and had counted down the column seven places. Jessica looked at her grade and beamed from ear to ear, heaving a big sigh as she turned to Ana, relief manifest on her face.

"I can't believe it, Ana! I got an A! This isn't possible! You know, Marie told me to relax--she said the trip'd be more fun if I stopped worrying about how I did. She said I'd do fine, and she was right!"

"Trip? What trip?" Ana asked, trying to seem only mildly interested.

"Oh, Marie took us to the capital on Saturday to visit a museum. Well, actually, Chris drove us. He's so nice and friendly, not at all like Marie--when you first meet her anyway.

"Why should Marie want to visit a museum?" Ana tried not to show the excitement she felt.

"So we could get some advice on the Campbell treasure clues, of course..." Jessica answered her patronizingly, then suddenly seemed to realize who she was talking to. "Uh, I've gotta go. Thanks for your help, Ana." Jessica added perfunctorily and then hurried down the hallway.

Marie's not the only one who can be manipulative, Ana thought to herself and laughed.

* * * * *

During lunch, Ana met Caera and Claudia at their table. A few minutes later, Todd, Alex, and Andrew appeared and sat down with their lunch trays, intending by the looks of this gesture to stay throughout the lunch period. Caera raised an eyebrow in question, and Ana whispered to her that she'd invited the boys earlier that day to eat at the girls' table so that they could all convene an important meeting.

"You may be wondering why I've brought you all together like this," Ana said while Alex looked around to see if anyone had noticed this historic event. Sure, they'd all talked together in the halls, and several times last week they'd dropped by each other's tables to discuss their plans, but this was the first time that they'd ever dared the public's eye in openly eating lunch together.

"Well," Ana continued, "I managed to worm a few things out of Jessica Ford this morning, and to put it quite simply, we're all in serious trouble." The emphatic way she said this silenced them and gave Ana their complete attention. Alex had turned around and Caera had even stopped chewing on her hamburger, it remaining frozen in her hands in mid-air before her mouth.

In the next few minutes, Ana explained what had happened that morning and told them what she had learned about Marie's activities over the weekend. Andrew groaned as Ana finished her story.

"Great. This is just great. We're getting no further, and Marie has just as many clues as we do. What if she finds the treasure before us?"

"She better not if she knows what's good for her," Caera grumbled under her breath.

"She can't," Claudia broke in. "Emma said only a 'true Campbell' can find it. That means that only we," she gestured around the table, "can solve this mystery."

"And put Emma's soul to rest." Alex hadn't spoken in a while, and all eyes turned to him now. Claudia saw the serious look in his eyes.

"And put Emma's soul to rest," she repeated softly.

* * * * *

A few tables away, behind and to the left of the Campbells, Emily Miles licked her lips after finishing the last petit fours from her mother's French bakery. She could see that Todd, Alex, and Andrew were seated at the girls' table, a fact which she could use to their discomfort if Jessica would only hurry up and finish her bologna sandwich. She didn't want to lose this opportunity; it was more than she could have hoped for.

A minute or so later, the two of them got up and slithered quietly to the other table, unnoticed until Ana looked up and broke off her conversation in mid-sentence, her eyes widening in surprise at first, then a distrustful scowl taking over her face. The others, noticing the change, glanced up to see the cause of the disturbance. Todd looked away, Alex and Andrew flushed red, and Caera wore a wry smile. Only Claudia appeared unperturbed. Emily hurried to get the first word in before Caera or Ana.

"Well look what we have here," she purred.

"What about it, Emily," Caera spat.

"Touchy, touchy. Really, Claudia, you should teach your sister better manners," at this Caera appeared to be foaming at the mouth, "but then you'd have to have them to teach them, wouldn't you?" She laughed lightly through a feline smile. Claudia gritted her teeth but didn't say anything.

"Are you speaking from experience, Emily? You'd better ask whoever taught you for your money back," Alex threw back dryly, having returned to his normal color.

"What do you want, Emily?" Ana demanded coldly. "Besides maybe a saucer of cream?" she saw fit to add. Emily's eyes shot darts in Ana's direction, but Ana's remark forced her to get to the point.

"Oh, well, I was just wondering if you were discussing the Valentine's Dance. That is why the boys are eating with you, right?"

"What?!"

"Please, people, you're not catching flies." Emily upturned her nose and continued. "That's what everyone is saying, you know. I mean, it's only two weeks away, and for the past few weeks everyone's seen you guys together. What's a person to think?" She batted her eyelids innocently.

"Now waitaminute—"

"You've got it all wrong, Emily—"

"Just because we've been talking with the girls doesn't mean—"

"Oh, excuse me," Emily cut through the protests. "I've got to talk to Marie now. She's waiting for me." Emily smiled demurely and prissed away with Jessica, who hadn't said one word during the entire interchange. "Goodbye," she threw over her shoulder before anyone could say anything. In an instant Todd, Alex, and Andrew got up and lifted their lunch trays.

"Excuse us, you guys, but Andrew and I have got to go talk with Mr. Sudge about our math assignment." Alex mumbled, his eyes directed more at the floor than the three girls.

"Uh, yeah." Andrew seemed quicker than usual on the uptake.

"And I gotta help'um because...um because—"

"Because we need to borrow his scientific calculator." Andrew was pleased to have found a feasible excuse.

"Oh, well, you don't have to go and get it. I could loan you mine," Ana replied casually and reached for her backpack.

"Uh, NO!" Andrew blurted quickly. "That is, you see, Todd's calculator saves programs, and we've already done a few functions on it. So uh," the three of them had edged about three feet away by now and were turning around, "We'll see ya later."

"Sure," Ana hummphed.

"Don't trip!" Caera yelled through the din, her face steaming.

* * * * *

That week, treasure fever hit the school. The "disease" broke out on Tuesday morning when the school's newspaper headlined an article written by Marie Summit containing "A few clues as discovered by the Campbells", who, Marie went on to say were "thrilled to share their findings and be helped by their classmates".

Treasure parties began to develop that very afternoon during lunch and after school. People met and talked in whispers in the hallway and in the library, clutching Marie's article reverently.

By the end of the day, Caera was looking over her shoulder every minute or so--she had been getting the feeling that people were following her. Twice already she'd seen Ellison Davis when she turned around, and was it her imagination or was it Corey Richardson's back she was seeing everywhere? Caera sighed and hoped she wasn't becoming neurotic.

Just then, she turned and went down the hallway, where Ana was heading for her and Claudia's lockers. Hurrying, she caught up to them just as Claudia was closing up her bookbag. Out of the corner of her eye, Caera now noticed a sizable group of people nonchalantly walking towards them; led by Ellison Davis, they avoided her eyes as Caera turned and glared at them, halting not far away. The noise in the hallway lowered considerably as Claudia began to speak.

"Have you noticed how strangely everyone's been acting lately?"

"Yeah--I'm even afraid to go to the bathroom alone--I feel like someone's watching me." Ana said as the three girls walked to the exit.

"Well, guess what?" Caera decided that it was time to change the subject. She was tired of feeling like a circus freak on display.

"What?" Ana inquired with an eyebrow's arc.

"I stopped by Mr. Sudge's room a few minutes ago, and we had a little chat. 'Seems the boys have a-been lyin' to us," she crooned the last part as if she were in an old Western.

"Those creeps!" Ana was fuming.

"What did he say exactly?" Claudia asked calmly but then reconsidered. "No, don't tell me. Let me guess. There is no math project, I suppose."

"Yup. And there isn't going to be any for about another month. I checked the assignments board on my way out. I tell ya, they sure picked the wrong class to have a so-called project due for--they shoulda known Mr. Sudge always keeps detailed records to remind himself when he forgets." They were reaching the curb and sat down to wait to be picked up.

"Yeah, well I'm still mad at them," Ana grumbled.

"I know whatcha mean," Claudia was agreeing. "It was pretty lame of them to walk out like that, just 'cause of what Emily said."

"Well we could get back at them, ya know," Caera suggested after a while. Ana and Claudia looked at her expectantly. She responded with a triumphant smile. "And I've got an idea how."

A Trick

The next morning, Caera, Claudia, and Ana had met at Caera's locker for a chat when Claudia noticed from her position Todd, Alex, and Andrew coming towards them through the crowded hallway, contrite expressions on their faces. She nudged Caera with her elbow, and almost immediately, the girls started projecting their voices and laughter in the boys' direction, doing their best to ignore their approach in hopes that they'd make a 180 degree turn the other way. They were still sore about being rebuffed during lunch the day before, and they weren't about to accept an apology just yet, not without exacting a little revenge, anyway.

When she realized that the boys were oblivious to the gist, Caera appeared to suddenly remember something and whispered it into Ana's ear, who relayed the message to Claudia. Caera decided that it was time to put her rehearsed plan B into action.

"Oh, how exciting!" Ana prattled on eagerly. "And so what happened next?" She feigned ignorance and winked at Caera, who spoke as loudly as she could without shouting and in her most dramatic tone, as soon as the boys were within earshot,

"Well, as I was saying, after Collin left, Emma went to that place I told you about, and I think that's where she hid her next clue!" Caera beamed, trying hard not to explode into laughter. Claudia was satisfied that her sister had given one of the best performances of her life, definite Oscar material.

"I think we've almost solved the mystery!" Claudia added in mock enthusiasm.

"Should we tell the boys?" Ana prompted them with the all-important question.

"Nah, they don't wanna have anything to do with us, so I think we should just..."

Caera pretended to see the boys just then and stopped, her startled expression perfectly timed. Their plan was working--Alex, Todd, and Andrew were evidently hurt and upset, and for a moment, Caera even felt a twinge of guilt. But then she remembered how embarrassed she'd been when they sprang away from the table...

Unfortunately, it was while looking at the boys' bemoanful expressions that she noticed Ellison Davis had been skulking just behind them, only now in her agitation revealing herself. Her eyes wide, her face glowing, she looked like she was in a frenzy while she tore through the things in her locker, throwing objects around until she found a spiral notebook and a pencil.

Uh-oh! Caera groaned. The boys weren't the only ones who'd overheard their little conversation and had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker...

* * * * *

Caera was filled with Friday morning excitement as she dodged and steered her way through the halls to history class and the pizza party that awaited her. Apart from being followed by Marie Summit twice already, once before school and once between first and second period, her day had been a flawless precursor to a fabulous weekend to come.

She hastened towards the origin of the familiarly irresistible aroma, spurred on by hunger since she'd had to skip breakfast to enjoy the occasion to its utmost. What, she asked herself, would have been the point if she didn't take advantage of the present opportunity? This food was free and greasy...

The pizzas arrived just as history began. Caera came in, dropped her books on the floor, and joined the throng in pushing the desks against the wall. Corey Richardson and Justin Porter shoved in the long, chipboard tables, and the hot pizzas were put down on them until the punch, cups, plates, and napkins were brought in.

Once the table was all set up, the lining up began. Corey Richardson made away with a whole pizza in his hands, balancing it on his head and dodging people until he found a private corner in the room. Caera watched him brush past her in amazement. She couldn't believe he was planning on eating the entire thing; most boys could only manage about six slices tops, most girls only four or five. But she only shrugged and followed as the line moved up.

Caera took two deep dish slices and one thin n' crispy and made her way to the back of the room where other students were sitting on top of their desks. Claudia was still in line getting some grub; Caera wondered why she hadn't gotten to the table earlier when the getting was good. If she didn't hurry, all of the pepperoni and Italian sausage pizzas would be gone, Caera thought to herself, now halfway into her second slice. She needn't have worried, though. Claudia approached a few minutes later, having chosen the exact same slices as her sister.

"What took you so long?" Caera demanded.

"It's a funny thing you should ask that." Claudia's eyes shone brightly. "I was on my way over here, when all of a sudden, Corey Richardson jumped up out of nowhere and asked me to next week's Valentine Dance. And I thought he was too much in love with himself and his food to think about anything else. Huh, go figure. "Claudia chuckled to herself.

"Well, didja say yes or what?"

"Of course. He just happens to be friends with the Davenports and Todd Miller, remember?" Claudia winked. "He was at their slumber party over the Christmas holidays. Besides, I figured we might just use this dance as an excuse to rub salt into the Davenports' wounds, whaddaya think?" Claudia had that rare sneaky look in her eyes, the one that Caera always loved to see.

"Gee, Claudia," Caera smiled. "I hardly knew you had it in you."

"Had what?" Caera was unexpectedly surprised by a loud, obnoxious voice in the vicinity. She looked up to meet Marie Summit's gimlet stare.

"Oh hello, Marie," she offered peacefully.

"Don't 'oh hello' me." She retorted, "as if you didn't know why I was here. I know that you two and that Robinson girl have found out more about the treasure."

"But honestly, Marie, we haven't--" Claudia started to object.

"Aw, come on, Claudia. You don't have to beat around the bush with me," Marie smirked crookedly. "Why, I heard some of the details from Ellison Davis just this morning. All I want to know is a few facts for Monday's newspaper, that's all, and I'm giving you the chance to tell me them yourself before I have to resort to other means to find them out."

"How very big of you," Caera uttered a contemptuous snort.

"Well, okay. If that's the way you feel about it," Marie proclaimed as if she'd failed to save them from themselves. "But don't say I didn't warn you," she glared hard at them before flouncing away.

"And to think we invited her to our Christmas Party this year." The girls looked at each other for a moment and couldn't help but laugh.

* * * * *

Friday morning came unusually frosty, but Claudia rolled out of bed as soon as her alarm clock sounded despite the chill in the air so that she could get to the bathroom before Caera did. On her way she glanced at the calendar hanging on her wall and groaned. It was the fourteenth--that one special day of humiliation that wormed its way into the rest of the year with a vengeance.

Grudgingly, her mind was forced to recall the most embarrassing moments of her life. Had they all occurred on Saint Valentine's Day? If the true interpretation of sainthood was the life of a sufferer, then the holiday had been aptly named, she decided. Which year was the worst? They were in close contention.

Let's see... there was first grade, when Alex and Andrew had played a trick on her by writing "I love Mr. Johansen", her teacher at the time, all over her heart on the display board. And third grade. She'd never forget that. She'd bought a present for a boy in school, and had left it on his desk during recess.

And what happened? Her so-called friend, Veronica Mitchell, finked on her. She told him who the present was from and had scrawled large messy hearts all over the simple, unmarked gift in paint-pen. Claudia couldn't escape even in her memories the laughter that had rained around her that day when the whole third grade found out. She'd felt like jumping off the nearest skyscraper--it was a good thing she'd had Caera to sympathize. And, of course, Ana had created an even worse rumor to humiliate Veronica.

Fifth grade—oh yeah. Three or four boys had asked her via phone to be their Valentine. She couldn't decide what to do, so she waited to see them all the next day.

But when she got to school, everyone knew about it and she was the laughing stock for taking the jokers seriously. She'd asked them later who it was that had put them up to it and discovered to her supreme displeasure that Alex and Andrew were the culprits.

Sixth grade, like kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade had crept past without a disaster, but now the odd year had rolled around again, and Claudia was afraid to face it.

"Saint Valentine should be excommunicated for causing me all this trouble. Nobody should have to be embarrassed because of one teensy-weensy, measly little holiday. Why don't they get rid of it altogether?" Claudia's rumination was interrupted by loud knocking.

"Can you hurry up? I'm desperate!" Caera banged and banged on the bathroom door until Claudia opened it. As soon as Claudia was out, Caera slammed it shut after her, making Claudia wonder. Why didn't Caera have such bad luck?

* * * * *

Claudia proceeded down the hallway, waiting for a piano or an anvil to drop out of the sky on top of her head, like she'd seen in old cartoons. She definitely thought the day was cursed and was reminded of Garfield's sentiments, "Do it to me now, Monday, get it over with." At least she could look forward to a good time at the Valentine Dance.

Due to an amazing stroke of good fortune, Caera and Claudia had each received a package in the mail the day before from their maternal grandfather and had torn into it eagerly, thinking of all the wonderful surprises he'd sent in the past. Inside were two beautiful dresses that were no doubt intended to be for Easter but which they were going to wear that evening, anyway. Just thinking about them brightened the day's prospects.

Claudia and Caera were nearing their lockers (one was located right next to the other) when they noticed that Ana was already there waiting for them.

"Hi guys." She waved as they approached. "How are you feeling about the dance tonight? Are you looking forward to it?"

"Yeah, you bet. Brian likes to be in the center of things, so at least I know my evening won't be dull."

"That'd be about right," Claudia laughed, "but what about me? I betcha Corey Richardson will forsake me for his beloved snack table all evening. I hope you have a good time, Ana, going with Justin Porter."

"Me too, guys, but.. I have a feeling I'm gonna get grilled by his sister, Amy, about the treasure every five minutes."

"Oh well, we're committed." Claudia laughed when she saw her sister and Ana pretending to be loonies from the funny farm and worked her locker combination to get her books for the morning.

* * * * *

At about seven o' clock, Caera descended the stairs, having showered and attired herself in her new dress; her hair was styled glamorously in an upsweep that made her neck and ears feel drafty. Traditionally, Caera made a 360 degree turn for her parents.

"You look beautiful, darling," Mr. Campbell enthused, kissing her on the cheek.

"Very nice, dear," her mother agreed before shouting to Claudia that they'd better leave if they didn't want to be late.

A minute later, Claudia nearly tripped as she descended the staircase two steps at a time. They had both decided to look as different as was possible tonight, and Claudia wore her hair in a mass of curls that fell to her shoulders.

"You'd better hope your hair doesn't fall down," she informed Caera wryly as she dropped her shoes on the floor and slipped into them.

"Thanks for your encouragement." Caera put as much sarcasm into her voice as she could, aware that her sister's remark scored a coupla points higher than hers on a scale from one to ten.

"You look beautiful, Claudia," Mr. Campbell said in a tone that meant they'd both better get in the car now if they wanted a ride.

"Thanks, Dad," Claudia said, her head down as she pulled up her hose. Caera was relieved to see that her mother was not intending to bring the camera with her this time. Throughout the drive into town, no one said much except Caera, who was telling their parents a story about what had happened in science a few days before when a Bunsen burner had set Elizabeth Atkinson's sleeve on fire, and when her father pulled the car up to the main entranceway to let them out, Claudia looked out the window.

It was a beautiful night. Though it had been snowing all afternoon, it had mostly melted by now, and the puddles and water which glistened on the cars and buildings reflected the light coming through the glass doors of the school.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Claudia saw Corey and Brian waiting for them just outside on the school's welcoming mat. She and Caera waved goodbye, and their parents left unobtrusively.

"You both look great," Brian managed to say when the girls approached.

"Yeah," Corey agreed. After heading to the cafeteria, the twins saw Ana and Justin Porter already moving about on the dance floor while the band behind them played slow songs. Claudia sighed as Corey made his way to the snack table, pulling her along with him. He poured them both a glass of punch, picked up a few heart-shaped cookies, and gobbled a slice of the heart-shaped Valentine cake, getting pink icing on the corners of his mouth.

Claudia turned and saw Brian chattering away in her sister's ear as they started to dance. Yup, she thought to herself, this is gonna be one of those evenings...

* * * * *

An hour and a half later, as Claudia stood to the side of the snack table where her date had virtually parked himself all evening, she laughed at the irony of the situation. There was Caera who was desperate for a break and a chance to sample the Valentine cake but who couldn't break away from Brian, who continued to whirl her around the floor.

Claudia herself had only danced two or three times, and she was beginning to feel neglected. So far her prediction concerning Valentine's Day disasters was coming true. Ana looked pleasantly happy when she came to the snack table with Justin Porter. He got them both a glass of punch, and Ana shot Claudia a sympathetic look and gestured to Corey Richardson. Claudia shrugged, and Ana and Justin soon moved back onto the dance floor.

Ten minutes later, Claudia decided to take a walk around the room; she was sick of being bored and ignored, and Corey didn't seem to notice much when she told him she was leaving and wouldn't be back for a while. He was probably too bloated to move.

As Claudia strolled down the hallway, seeing all of the happy people, she felt even more miserable and so slumped on a chair at the side of the room, her mind drifting into a daydream about how she wished the evening had progressed. A minute later, a familiar figure walked past, scanning the room for someone. Claudia was disturbed and looked up.

"Alex?" she thought aloud.

He turned around, surprised to see Claudia behind him.

"Claudia, you're just the person I wanted to see." Alex moved to her left side and seated himself. "The guys and I have been miserable these past two weeks," he began, faltering on the word "miserable". "We didn't mean for you all to get mad at us, and we still want to be involved in the search." Little worry lines furrowed his forehead, and his lips compressed to a thin line.

"It really upset us when you girls wouldn't tell us about the new clues you'd discovered." Alex almost whined. Claudia was beginning to regret their little prank. Could she tell him that it had all been a joke without his getting angry?

At that moment, Claudia noticed something in Alex's hand. It looked like--a flower? "What's that?" She gestured to his hand that dangled over the other side of his chair.

"Oh," Alex suddenly remembered what he'd brought with him. "This is for you, Claudia. It's my way of apologizing for all those mean jokes we played on you on Valentine's Day. You probably don't remember, but..." his voice trailed off as he brought up a single red rose and gave it to her.

Claudia was stupefied. Of course, she remembered all of the jokes, but she was so excited that the cycle of sour Saint Valentine's Days had finally come to an end that she didn't hold them against him.

"Where's your date?" Claudia inquired with a grin, fingering the rose's petals and drinking in its scent.

"Oh, uh, well y'see, I came alone." Alex stuttered a reply. "Where's yours?" He asked, looking around. Claudia laughed.

"He's at the snack table. Where else?"

"Well then, what say we have a dance?" Alex suggested, giving her his arm. "Shall we?"

"Maybe one," she smiled. During their dance, Claudia saw Andrew apologizing to Caera who had managed to break away from Brian for a minute. Momentarily abandoned, Brian pestered Justin into going to the bingo room with him, and shortly afterwards, Todd meandered over to Ana and struck up a conversation.

"I have an idea," Claudia told Alex, "let's all go outside to the courtyard. We've got some things that need to be cleared up."

"I'm game." Alex replied exuberantly. "This dumb dance is no fun, anyway." Claudia signaled to Ana and Caera who came over, closely followed by Todd and Andrew, and then she told them her suggestion. Alex held her hand as they hurried to the exit, and he kept the door open while Claudia led the way outside, where the bright stars twinkling above in the midnight black sky told her that everything was going to turn out just fine.

* * * * *

Caera violently regretted volunteering to babysit the young children for church that Sunday morning a few weeks later. The job would have been easy, if it weren't that the three and four year olds didn't sleep in cribs the whole time like the babies did. They had to be out, flipping through books to see the pretty pictures, all the while demanding that she read the words printed beneath them, fighting over whose toy was whose, stuffing handfuls of Cheerios and little graham crackers into their mouths and at the same time succeeding in dropping the same amount all over the floor, running around with little model airplanes and making whooshing noises, and occasionally chanting "get sidder, get sidder" before running at Caera and knocking her over.

One little girl in particular loved to see how much power she could have over Caera. At only four and a half years of age, she had managed to figure out how to get her way at any time and from any person and looked upon every stranger as a new challenge.

At the moment, she held Caera's shoe and was running around the room with it, uttering high-pitched squeals of delight the closer she got to the only window in the room. Unfortunately, the room was not only on the second storey of the building, but it had also rained the night before, and the ground was wonderfully oozing mud everywhere.

Caera yelled at the little girl to stop just as she reached the window and began opening it. Too late, she realized as she heard the little girl's giggle.

"One step closer and I'll drop it," she threatened as she suspended Caera's shoe by one hand and extended the other one out in front of her to push Caera away if she got near.

"Leslie, you give me back that shoe this instant!" Caera saw the little pink bow on her head shake "no" and tried again, "If I give you a candy bar, will you give me back my shoe?"

Again the pink bow shook "no".

"Leslie, if you drop my shoe, I'll tell your mother, and she'll punish you for being so naughty."

That was precisely what Leslie wanted to hear. Without a word she let go of the shoe.

Caera ran frantically to the window in time to see it sail downward and land in the mud with a squelch.

Caera realized she had little time to retrieve and clean her shoe before church was over. She left Katie, the oldest and bossiest child in the nursery at seven years of age, in charge until she got back with strict orders to watch that nothing but food entered anyone's mouth and that the young children didn't play with any sharp objects. Without even a backward glance, Caera descended the winding staircase and burst through the outside door. At last she reached the area where Leslie had dropped the shoe, but it was nowhere to be found.

Caera stooped over and began scrabbling away in the mud, momentarily reflecting that something dropped in mud like this could be buried forever. Before long, however, she laid sight of her shoe, and all her concentration centered around getting back to the nursery before the end of church. Luckily, there was a hose outside, and the mud came off easily since it was thin and watery.

Caera put her wet shoe back on and ran into the building, entering the nursery just as the church service ended. But she couldn't shake the irrepressible feeling that she had lost more than a shoe in mud like this a very long time before.

Caera hardly spoke the whole way home. As soon as the car drove up, she got out and ran for the front door, not waiting till it was in the garage. In a matter of seconds, she was inside and up in her room to change out of her good clothes. The odd feeling she had experienced less than a half hour before had changed into excitement, and while she yanked on her favorite blue track suit, her mind raced through new ideas and adjusted old ones.

Caera reached for her bottom drawer and rummaged through for the old message that they'd found. Holding it at last in her hand, she read it again:

After looking at it for several minutes, Caera found herself remembering how she, Claudia, and Ana had marched all over town looking for links with Emma's life as an answer to the "Search within thy Past" cryptic. But obviously it had to mean something else because they hadn't found anything.

Funnily enough, the three of them had always used the second message in conjunction with the first one, but were they supposed to? And what was it that the other one had said? Oh yeah. Caera had written it on another piece of paper, and it was folded up with Emma's first message. She read it again also.

"Draw together the Clues that you find

For your purpose, keep in mind

You will see what is is what is not

Search carefully, X marks the Spot"

They hadn't gotten the "Search within thy Past" part right, and the "X marks the Spot" clue was also leading nowhere. But there were other parts of the two messages they hadn't explored yet. And now that Caera thought about it, was it possible that the "X marks the spot" was supposed to lure people off the right track? She wondered. After all, it sounded really like a clue from Treasure Island; like a clue to a pirate's treasure.

Maybe Emma had said that because she knew that some people wouldn't have cared what had happened to her and her father and would only be concerned with the family fortune. And maybe then it was a sign that they should really be trying to put her soul to rest first--that finding out what really happened was more important. If that were the case, then the reason the treasure had never been found was because people had been going about everything in the wrong way in their greed.

But what about the rest of the clues contained within the two messages? Had they found any viable answers to them? All Caera could see was that when Ana got the list of historical buildings from her uncle, they hadn't turned up a thing. And they had all assumed there'd be a clue out by the Davenport's house and figured that the only untouched part of the property was the back yard. So they had dug but found nothing. And what purpose had the excursion served?

Caera thought hard. She and Claudia were obviously looking for the treasure being Campbells as they were, and Ana well, she was their best friend. But the Davenports? It struck Caera just then that their ancestor had been part of the mystery too, since Aaron Davenport had been accused of Mr. Campbell's murder and was himself found dead shortly afterwards.

In fact, the whole second message had been instrumental in getting the Davenports involved, first of all because it had led the girls into their backyard and also because Alex had only believed in the dreams because he himself had felt Emma's presence outside the cave. Maybe this was Emma's purpose--to reassemble the same parties of long ago. Caera shuddered. She hoped another murderer wasn't going to reappear.

Despite these revelations, there were still things that bothered Caera. Emma kept bringing them through her past through the twins' dreams. Be that as it was, the dreams thus far hadn't led to anything concrete, except perhaps the fact that they were what had motivated Claudia and Caera to get involved with Emma's murder and the mystery of the lost treasure in the first place and they were also steering them subtly in the right directions. Caera pondered the situation.

"That's right!" she excitedly jumped on her bed with a heavy thud. It was true. So far they had been concentrating on the "Search within thy Past" line and the "X marks the Spot"--in short, the treasure and the wrong direction. The dreams, however, were always there trying to tell them things, and not just the dreams but strange feelings like she'd had that morning had come and gone. The image crossed her mind again.

Falling... buried forever... the mud... Like all the dreams, it had to have something to do with Emma.

She remembered the where they had first seen the ghost of Emma together, out on the lawn. And she considered that Emma had to have stayed at the house after she hid the diary because she wrote this and hid it somewhere for it to be eventually put in the crate in the attic. Caera's face wore a look of stern concentration.

O.K. I know she hid her diary and afterwards was still at the house to hide this message. She wouldn't have gone very far to hide anything—very probably not even as far as the Davenports' and definitely not to town or else the killer could have found her before she had had a chance to hide the diary. Seeing as how she wrote here that she had accomplished the task—

and she couldn't dare its being discovered by her killer if it really disclosed the location of the family fortune or if it revealed her or his identity—

"It has to be here—in our house! " Caera grinned in exultation but suddenly stopped.

Falling... buried forever.....

"No! Not in our house." She picked up the worn book and ran outside to find Claudia.

"I'm tellin' ya, Ana. Caera says there's something buried in the yard," Claudia was explaining just twenty minutes later to Ana on the telephone.

"Oh, no, not that again. Haven't we already demolished one back yard this year?" Ana teased.

"But that was the wrong place," Caera insisted, now on the extension.

"Well, even if we do decide to dig up your back yard, how are we gonna do it without your parents noticing? Remember what the Davenports' yard looked like?"

"I've already figured it out," Caera assured her. "Look. Last time we weren't thinking. It's been at least two hundred years since Emma died, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So, anything that's survived damp soil and microorganisms that long would probably have to be made out of metal. Wood would've rotted, at least most kinds would have. That means that if there's anything down there, it's probably metal and could be detected with a little aid from modern technology."

"You mean a metal detector."

"Precisely."

"But where are we gonna get one?"

"Just leave it to good ole' Sears and Roebuck," Caera answered confidently.

"I know that, silly, but have you any idea how much they cost? A lot," she finished when Caera didn't answer.

"We could chip in," Claudia suggested. "All six of us. And then maybe we could afford one."

"I dunno . . . "

"Just think how it'll pay off when we find Emma's diary," Caera tempted her with the possible tangibility of their dream.

"You mean if it's not with the treasure," Ana retorted.

"It couldn't be, " Caera responded calmly, "or Emma would have hinted to that in her secret messages."

"Well, " Ana considered the situation for a minute. "All right. But since it was your idea, Caera, you've gotta call the boys and tell them about it, okay?"

"Great. So whattaya say we all meet Saturday morning at nine o ' clock at our house? We'll get the detector during the week."

"Fine with me," Ana conceded, "but you've forgotten my original question. What are you gonna tell your parents?"

"We'll just tell them that we want to bury a time capsule," Claudia opined. "That'll explain why we wanna dig up the yard, and then we've just gotta say it's a secret to get a little privacy.

"It sounds like you two have already given this a lot of thought," Ana laughed.

The Diary

"That's two hundred fifty-three dollars and eighty seven cents." Andrew fastened a rubber band around the grubby swadge of bills and stuffed it and the coins into a change purse. The six of them were gathered in a circle in an alcove of the school's courtyard, looking mournfully at their money. Ana thought of a month of lawn mowing and resisted the urge to touch her contribution one last time, but no one noticed the baleful expression on her face since they were all lost in similar reveries.

"Oh well," Claudia commiserated, "If we're gonna do this, then let's get going."

"Right." Caera swallowed hard. "There's nothing to be gained by just standing here. And what's more important, finding the diary or two hundred and fifty bucks?" Andrew stared at the coin purse but looked up abruptly when his brother nudged him. The funds were soon stashed in Todd's backpack, and the group prepared to exit the building discreetly.

Two by two they marched back into the school building in the direction of the nearest door to the outside, which was ensconced on the other side of the cafeteria. They didn't make it far, however, before they were spotted. Jessica Ford and Amy Porter noticed their haste and strolled over to them, breaking off a conversation with an after school crowd in the cafeteria.

"Guess who's managed to block off the escape route?" Ana muttered through clenched teeth at the girls' approach. "Oh hi, Jessica... Amy."

"Hi, Ana." They glanced at each other conspiratorially. "We were just wondering where you all," Amy picked up on the guilty looks on their faces and smiled, "were going."

"Whaddaya mean, Amy?" Caera chirped innocently.

"Oh I think you know what we mean," Amy replied sweetly. "You were rushing off so fast, and I thought to myself, what could possibly be so important to them that--the treasure. It probably must mean there's something up with the treasure! Well, I just had to come over here and confirm it, you know. It just wouldn't do to let you leave without having something to tell Marie, now would it?"

"There's nothing to tell, Amy." Claudia was already indicating to the others to go ahead and let her deal with Emily's and Marie's lackeys and sometime miscreants. "My mother's taking everyone home today, and we're late because she's getting off work earlier than usual. So if you don't mind, we'll see you tomorrow." Claudia waved, hoping her story would be believed.

"Whew," she announced her presence once she was outside. The others were in the parking lot waiting and turned around when they heard her. Once they were rejoined, they slipped off towards the town center unobtrusively. It was still early enough for most of the school to be inside chatting with their friends, but Claudia didn't stop worrying until they'd made it to the relative anonymity of the shopping district. She had a strange feeling that they were being followed, and when they entered the first store she thought she saw someone that vaguely resembled Ellison Davis coming down the street.

After the first three department stores, however, (Alex had insisted that they buy the cheapest detector and the others raised no objections) Caera made the others stop in the candy store for cherry sours, and Claudia felt convinced that they'd thrown any spies off the track.

Everyone at the funeral wore black. She had never seen so much black; the mourners, the casket, the pall bearers, the coaches. The storm that had been coming brought with it no more wind but instead ceaseless drizzle and a dull gray sky. Now that the minister had finished his words, people were throwing flowers over the coffin. There were some sobs from those standing behind her, but Emma found her eyes were very dry.

As if the funeral were mechanical, the gravediggers pressed in from somewhere, eager to finish the burial as quickly as possible in the rain, and the mourners wafted back towards their coaches. Emma was numb to their condolences, so they shook hands with her uncle John before they took their leave. Soon only her uncle, Susanna, and Mrs. Brodie remained, and then they, too, headed back to Emma's house to settle her father's affairs.

Emma hardly noticed when her uncle and Mrs. Brodie left the two cousins alone together in the parlor. Susanna was the only person she could talk to who wouldn't mention what had happened; everyone at the funeral seemed very sorry that she had been the one to find her father but continued to discuss it until she couldn't stand it anymore. A long silence ensued, during which both girls looked out the window at the dreary day.

"Great uncle Ian will have to face terrible news when he gets back." Susanna broached a new subject.

"Yes..." Emma continued to gaze out the window. "I suppose he will."

"I did so miss my brother at the funeral."

"Really? I didn't notice his absence."

"Yes, Father says he was quite upset. He's out there now, hunting in the forest." Hunting? Emma thought back to the long blade of the hunting knife that had been used to murder her father. Her thoughts were shrouded in confusion. Who had killed her father, and why? She shivered. It couldn't have been Collin, could it?

The window pane was streaked with rain, but for a moment she saw rivules of blood and shot bolt upright. Everything was blackness, except for an instant. Claudia in her room rubbed her eyes and looked around. She knew in a moment that her sister had been dreaming with her, and ran to Caera's room, hoping they found the diary, and soon.

"All right, you guys. Are you ready? Who'll do the honors?" Andrew held aloft the metal detector and glanced about the circle of five faces. Both sets of twins plus Ana and Todd had met early that Saturday morning in the Campbells' back yard. The sun was shining brightly, and it was rather warm for a February day without clouds. Behind the house, the group was almost completely sheltered from the wind, but its oscillating song could be heard whistling around the roof of the house and through the trees which cocooned the house like a protective wreath.

Caera saw no reason for Andrew's pep talk and promptly relieved him of the metal detector. "Let's just get on with it," she griped. "We're freezing our butts off out here." Andrew's enthusiasm was encouraging. He'd changed since the hunt for Emma's diary began, and her words, to her own surprise, seemed to have an affectionate ring, spoken as they were through a grin.

As it turned out, Ana had been the only one to read the instruction manual entirely, and so it fell to her to work the metal detector while the others watched and listened carefully as they followed behind her. For a long time a silence hung in the air, except for the sound of the wind and the constant whine of the detector.

For the first times it sounded, they scrambled excitedly in the frozen earth only to find disappointingly an old beer cap lid and a rusted belt buckle. They didn't know which window Emma would have dropped her clue from, but Caera and Claudia had guessed that she had been standing at either the library window or one of the bedroom windows.

As they walked further from the house to an area below and a little ways from the library window, the detector sounded again faintly, and the friends exchanged a quick speculative look, excited but wary of further disappointment. Todd, Alex, and Claudia dug at the spot first, and then Caera and Andrew took over while Ana held the detector high above.

They had worked for just over ten minutes when Caera thought she felt the shovel scrape against something hard. She stopped Andrew and rubbed the dirt away from the surface of a piece of metal that was sticking through the earth at the bottom of their artificial hole. In a moment, she and Andrew were carefully digging away the soil around the object to loosen it from its age long grave.

After she thought that they had dug enough around it, Caera pulled gingerly on the piece of metal that stuck out, and it slowly wiggled free. The others crowded round as she brought something out, but they couldn't as yet tell what it was under the clod of muddy earth that still clung stubbornly to it.

Claudia rushed inside to get a pan of water while the others waited outside anxiously. When she returned in a few minutes, Caera placed the object in the pan, and Alex swished it around until the water turned murky and a sound of metal sliding on metal was heard.

They had found a key--a worn, brass key with scratched and dull teeth encased in a sickly green coating of slime. In a sudden flash of insight, a picture formed clearly in Caera's mind, and she saw her, Claudia, and Ana in their attic months before. Claudia's words that day came back to echo in her ears.

"...believe me, Ana, it's definitely not in there. We can't even find a key for that trunk..."

"Wow, a key!" Todd was saying. "Whaddaya suppose it opens?" The others looked around, each lost in ponderous thought.

"Of course!" Caera shouted her thoughts aloud. "It's been right before our eyes this whole time!" She grabbed the key, got to her feet excitedly, and ran to the back door. The others exchanged a brief dubious look before following suit.

Caera tread up the stairs, her feet making thumping noises in her haste. In her mind she recalled the day when her parents had had the attic inspected for dry rot, six years previously. The attic had always been cluttered and countless oddities turned up every time she perused it, but it stuck her with increasing conviction that she never remembered seeing that black trunk before that day! As a dream the memory came back to her.

She had been warned off going up there because of the decayed insulation material floating about and because of the mildew spores that filled the air with their odious perfume, yet her natural roaming spirit had prompted her one quiet afternoon. She had climbed the creaky steps and entered the gloom, visions of old castle dungeons spurring her imagination.

The dust after the workmen had torn out the old walls had nearly settled, and she could breathe. She laughed at her parents' worry about that. It was safe and much more fun to be exploring it now in light of the admonition. Some old chairs were covered with sheets, and all the clutter previously against the walls was pushed to the center of the room. She skipped around it a little, then alighted on a shadowy corner of the spacious room.

This corner had been excluded from the part of the room that had been made into the attic, but with the removal of the rotten walls the size of the area was now increased. She bounded around in the open space and then felt herself drawn to the shadow, which wasn't a shadow at all but an old trunk, looking as forlorn as though it had been misplaced in the commotion and now rested abandoned...

When Caera reached the attic again, the trunk was not far from where it had been waiting for the last six years, but more accurately, the last two hundred. Caera lost no time in placing the brass key in the first padlock. After several moments of hard turning, her heart jumped when it clicked open and raced wildly as she tried and succeeded with the other. The shock and wondrous dread in the room was palpable as Claudia lifted open the lid of the ancient receptacle, and all strained in the dim light to behold the diary of Emma Campbell.

May 7, 1768

Today Papa has giv'n me this new Diary in which I am to wright observations and reflections. I shall endeavour to do my best in this, though I cannot imagine that I shall find anything important enough to preserve and look back upon. Papa assures me that someday I will enjoy reading these entries when time has passed and my powers of recollection have grown dim.

To-day was my birthday and we have entertained an intimate fellowship of callers for dinner, quite a change from our usual quiet evenings. My uncle John and cousins Collin and Susanna came to celebrate the Occasion with Mrs. Brodie, papa, and with me. Regretfully, it has been a long time since I saw Susanna last, almost a year, but still she is my dearest friend in all the world apart from papa, and we have made arrangements to meet one another this summer.

My cousin Collin has grown into a fine-looking young man over the past few years. He is nineteen years of age. Collin tells me that he has finished his studies as a solicitor and now works with my uncle in town. Mrs. Brodie says that Uncle John is quite a successful solicitor; I have no doubt that Collin will prosper as well.

Uncle John has commission'd a portrait for my birthday and from Susanna and Collin I received a new harness for my beloved Barney. Yet more than my gratitude for these I feel grateful for their attendance, and I shall always remember this day with fond affection.

June 22, 1768

This early part of summer has been exceedingly hot, and many of the nearby springs have dried up so that the farmers of our region have fallen into dire times. Our back garden lasted no longer than the second week of June, and as water is become short, papa urges me to preserve what little we have stored. I fear that this unexpected drought may destroy the summer crops and leave our area hungry.

This morning I saw my diary lying atop the dressing table where last I stored it. Many times I have considered writting in its pages, but something prevents me in this endeavour. In this close and humid climate, I feel somehow small and restless and able to do little; perhaps I shall pass the time with spinning and needlework. Oh, but I had rather go swimming in the ocean!

July 2, 1768

It has rain'd today & every day for the past week, and now we dare to hope that the Drow't is ended. Papa tells me that several of our neighbours lost much in the past month. I hope it is early enough in the season to plant our garden again for the autumn harvest. We have been lucky papa says because of the many streams, or burns as he calls them, which come down from the hills in our woodlands and as yet have not run dry, in spite of the heat and the months without rain.

Yet despite the recent rain coming, it is still a burden to the farmers as the strength of the waters wash away their labours; the curious heat continues day after day, stealing strength from heart and limb.

July 18,1868

Much of the hardship of recent days seems to have passed even as it grows cooler, yet for the second time this month papa has gone away suddenly and quite unexpectedly under peculiar circumstances. Mrs. Brodie tells me not to worry as papa's business thrives more than ever before, but as far as I may tell, circumstances seem quite the opposite. I heard papa arguing over the price of a new team of horses, and even at home I feel that we are beginning to grow tight with our purse. Perhaps I have no reason to worry so, but I must admit that in my state of confusion, to do so seems most natural.

On a happier note, I am spending the day tomorrow with my cousin Susanna, and papa should be returning to take me up to the town tomorrow morning. Thrice oneley have we met since my last birthday. Although these visits are more frequent than they had been, I feel a peculiar sense of dread when Susanna is parted from me that I shan't see her again.

August 2, 1768

These past few days my dearest papa has been affected by troublesome news concerning his business I am sure, for he will not partake of supper and wanders thro' the house; I fear he frets over concerns which he will not disclose. Only today did I succeed in dispelling some of this unpleasant humour, as we rode this afternoon into the forest glen, where the troubles of this material world matter not.

Papa and I are so very much alike in temperament. He tells me that he is sorry I have had no mother to care for me and to teach me, but I have been content. In the serene wild of the world I find I am comfortes as much comfort as he; and I may forget for a time my cares and my concern for his unease, which weighs on my mind now perpetually.

August 31, 1768

Susanna and I went on an excursion by the sea today to enjoy this last day of August, which may be the end of our warm weather. Something in the air has sent a chill to my heart and a vision came to me to-day, terribly real as some event destined to befall me.

Yet I doubt if I am able with quiet resignation to accept a fate brought wantonly, met without sacrifice and for no purpose.

Why it should occur to me today that I would die young as my mother before me I cannot guess, yet as we played, in my joy I thought that I felt the stirring of my soul within me and I thought how fragile my life must be. It will probably seem idle folly when this I read years from now, and I shall laugh at my own childish anxiety. Papa says I am a healthy child, and that there is no cholera in Massachusetts.

September 17, 1768

As the harvest begins, the cold weather has set in. Overnight it seems that the winter has fallen from the frozen north and brought with it the icy winds that make travel on the county roads so difficult. Papa says that it will be warm again before winter truly arrives, yet the sudden change of weather and season is enough to discourage me from going to town to acquire provisions with Mrs. Brodie.

Some of the farmers who lost their crops have run into debt, and for many this year will end bitterly. It seems that our family has prospered well enough, both papa and my Uncle John, and Uncle Ian as well.

Last night I overheard an argument between Papa and the Englishman Mr. Davenport, who had come to re-evaluate Papa's assets after the harvest profits had been counted. I knew t'would be wrong to stay to listen unheeded, but in passing I could not help but hear Papa; he has said to Mr. Davenport that he would not disclose news concerning some man secretly indebted to him. The name of this strange gentleman remained unspoken even in the security of Papa's study.

Mr. Davenport sought to protest against this; but papa refused to discuss the matter. Papa has secur'd Mr. Davenport's promise to keep the information from our small community and from the family. I could not imagine why Papa should speak with such force; it troubles me that my gentle father should be so disturbed.

November 12, 1768

Papa seems to have dealt with his business quandaries. I believe he is faring better and his nerves much calm'd. The weather has turned warm again just as papa said it would, and the air is become clear and healthy. I have resum'd my daily rambling walks into the woods which gives papa an opportunity to review his paperwork before dinner.

I must admit that I enjoy these evenings the best, when papa and I sit by the fire to read Shakespeare or Marlowe or Donne, or else he might tell old tales of Scottish heroes, battles, and defiant kings, while Mrs. Brodie works on her embroidery; she is a kind soul to me and smiles at me as she woks and listens to out tales. I suppose she feels I am spoilt, with no honest work to do as most of the children of town. Papa is a man of considerable Fortune, so that I am not requir'd to make many visits into town. I have all I should need, thanks to God; but I am without companions my own age.

November 27, 1768

Papa and I passed the traditional season of gratitude for the harvest with Mrs. Brodie. To-day Susanna, Collin, and theier father John came uncalled for a visit and stayed for a dinner of roasted Beef and bannocks. It has been a month or two since I last saw Collin or Uncle John. Collin spends much of his time hunting now that the leaves are fallen and the fowl are easy prey.

December 1, 1768

Papa seems to have become increasingly agitated by some business concern, and I cannot help but wonder if it is not the same problem as troubled him before. Now even Mrs. Brodie has heard papa and Mr. Davenport in argument in his study, though papa keeps his voice decent and low; if he knows that Mrs. Brodie or I am nearby. What I have heard of his words perturbs me as I ponder their meaning in my daily thoughts. I hear again papa saying he will not ruin a man, since it is against family loyalty. I cannot imagine what he should mean by this.

December 26, 1768

I could not force myself to wrightt today were it not that I cannot speak to any one.

My beloved papa is dead. He has been murder'd. Even as I write these words, I cannot force myself to understand why this has happened.

I have never been so alone, even as all of my closest relatives and family friends gathered round me today for the burial of my father, and my only waking thought is to discover his murderer. As angry as I feel, at the same time an overwhelming fear consumes me, as suspicions I dare not name rob me of my security. Uncle John, Susanna, and Collin came to stay with me for a little while, though Collin spent much of the day out hunting.

Collin. I cam scarcely write his name, and still my pen falters before I may finish. Collin whom I admired and loved--I cannot now hear his name without recalling the hunting knife and remembering the moment when I saw the instrument of my father's death lodged gloating victoriously in his back as he lay in that horrible pool of blood!

I have asked myself why any should desire Papa's death, and I have thus come to the conclusion that only one who would stand to benefit most from the deed could have performed it, and much as I am loath to believe it, my heart dares to suspect Collin.

To write his name sends my hand trembling. Would he also seek my death to inherit Papa's wealth? For what good would come of such a plan as long as I lived to claim my father's assets? And my beloved Susanna, how do I treat you or tell you of your own brother's treachery? Was this the reason why Collin kept away while his victim was enterred? Until I know the truth I shall not feel safe, at least not until he is gone.

December 27, 1768

In papa's study today, I discovered a plan to the house within his confidential drawer. Mr. Davenport has yet to come by to sort through papa's belongings; I suspect that he is deeply affected by papa's death and may not come back until after the New Year.

Curiously, papa's plan showed rooms and corridors that do not exist, so thus I decided to search his study and a secret passage, well hidden in the wall, became revealed to me.

In my eagerness, I set out at once to explore the first tunnel, yet I must be ever cautious owing to the presence of possible danger. I shall explore the passages all around as much as I may over the next few days until the morning of the thirtieth, when Susanna and her father and brother are to return to town.

Mrs. Brodie has suggested that I meet with them for the new year, but I would rather not go out into this chill air, for though I fear even to remain here, I feel safer than I would riding towards danger and to the fate I know might befall me upon the road. Mrs. Brodie has offered to come to live with me here as papa suggested in his will, and I have pressed her to take up residence soon, perhaps before the year's end.

December 29, 1768

I know not what to make of the unexpected news which today I overheard from the secret passage within the wall.

Uncle John and Mr. Davenport were conversing in papa's study, Mr. Davenport having been summoned by Uncle John to discuss with him some of papa's affairs, and he left shortly thereafter as I later discovered.

'Tis a pity Uncle Ian wasn'y here fer all this, as 'es awa' in Boston,' uncle John was saying. 'Is he now?' Mr. Davenport questioned him. 'Aye, but ye ken how he doesn'y like funerals. Now about James' estate, he left it t'Emma?' 'Yes, and to you and your family a yearly purse of three hundred pounds, a fortune really, ' Mr. Davenport answered.

'What! He didn'y?!' I know my uncle John well, and he sounded genuinely surprised by this news. 'Well. 'twill help,' he went on. 'Help, sir?' Mr. Davenport asked him again. 'Aye,' Uncle John replied. 'I didn'a want ta tell James, but I've borrowed some money frae Ian. I was setting up a law practice y'ken and though James said he'd be happy ta lend me a hand should I ever need the money, I couldn'y borrow frae ma younger brother, not after a' the help he'd already given me, and 'twas to be a surprise. Anyway, noo I can pay Ian wi' the money frae the purse.'

Then there was a moment of silence until Uncle John spoke again. 'Eh, now, whatever is the matter, Davenport?' Mr. Davenport replied, 'It's nothing, sir. It's better that you don't know and quite... unimportant really.' The voices faded away as Mr. Davenport and Uncle John must have left the study just then.

Though I know him but a little, I am still a bit more acquainted with papa's clerk than Uncle John and know him to be a thoroughly decent and honest man as well as quite intelligent, but the said gentleman is unable to disquiet his manner when something troubles him, and I suspect that the matter of this interchange worries him a great deal more than he will say. For my part, I am trying to remember every particular from past discourses between papa and Mr. Davenport. I only hope that it will lead me to the identity of the murderer and the punishment to which he is entitled.

December 31, 1768

What a silly fool I have been! This morning it did occur to me that papa had refused to forsake a man in his debt, and so accordingly I went to view the contents of papa's confidential drawer out of a casual interest and perhaps to discover a clue to the many questions surrounding his untimely death.

To my horror I have discovered a letter of credit to Uncle Ian by papa in excess of two hundred pounds, and I cannot but assume that my Great Uncle is the member of the family whose reputation papa so long protected. I must say that the news was shocking, as Uncle Ian seems to be the most prosperous of the family apart from papa, yet the letter to papa indicates that Uncle Ian met with difficulty during the drought and was obliged to borrow from papa to maintain a plantation of significant size which he had recently purchased.

Another correspondence from Uncle Ian is here sent in reply to a letter in which papa must have advised Uncle Ian against an undisclosed business venture that must have subsequently failed, as my uncle promises to follow papa's advice in future if only he may again borrow still a little more money. Then again I found another credit for five hundred pounds, but there is nothing more.

It occurs to me now as I write this to myself that with papa's death, Uncle Ian will receive the money owed him from Uncle John, and perhaps Uncle Ian may not have to repay his debts to papa at all, for who now knows of them but Mr. Davenport and me? Could Uncle Ian have killed papa? Surely not. He would not inherit a penny, unless I, too, were dead...

Oh what a fool I was to suspect Collin! Dear Collin who loved me as a sister and taught me how to ride and told the best stories to Susanna and me on our summer picnics into the woods. Forgive me!

I now feel unsafe alone in this house writing these words, and though it is still but mid-afternoon, the sun sets earlier each day. Mrs. Brodie is coming to stay this evening and every day hereafter shall bide with me, just as papa would wish.

I am frightening myself, for though it is silly, I now wonder how safe it is to remain here, for I cannot believe Uncle Ian is away on business in Boston. From what I now know, he alone had motive to murder papa, but surely he would not come now to kill me as well? He could have killed me with papa could he not? No... I was out on a walk in the woods.

If he knows that I am alone here, I must not wait for Mrs. Brodie. I shall chance a ride to Uncle John's house in town. Oh Susanna, how I long to see you again and never again feel alone. But how can I leave when Uncle Ian might be watching the road? I can only pray that my suspicions are proven false or else these words written here may be my only witness.

My diary. I must get it safely away from here. If I cannot, at least it must remain secure for others to find. I will see to it that in this game you do not win, Uncle Ian!

I have tried to hide my diary outside but no safe place can I find in these last, desperate moments. Barney is saddled and ready to take me down the road, and the sun is setting. Instead I shall hide my diary in papa's great trunk in the attic as there is only one key, and this I shall throw from the window of his study. As it rained this week, the ground must still be soft enough to conceal the precious key to all of my secrets until I arrive home again safely or until those beloved to me may discover it and read this and permit me righteous vindication.

Oh dearest Susanna, if these words you read and I am gone as I feared, remember always that I love you and that I will forever be your

—Emma

Claudia flipped through the rest of the book, composed now of only empty pages. Dust leaped out in gusts that irritated their noses. For a long time there was complete silence in the room. No one knew what to say now that they had found out what really happened, and Caera's gesture to replace the crumbling book in its long-time prison was the first move anyone made. Claudia was sure they all felt the same way she did; Emma was a real person and her great uncle had really killed her--wiped away were her talents and feelings and expectation of a happy future. And for what? A debt that his nephew had enough money to pay for him if he would only listen to sound advice?

The events were revealed in all their ugliness, but they were at last revealed. It had been Ian Alexander and not Aaron Davenport. History was wrong, and they had the proof.

"No wonder she could never be at peace," Caera said softly, "knowing her life was ended for such greedy, pathetic reasons..."

"And especially when the wrong man was unjustly accused of it," Andrew broke in. This was what he had been wanting to discover.

"True." Claudia nodded. "And most likely Ian was responsible for the death of Aaron Davenport as well, because he was the only other person who knew about the debts Ian owed to Emma's father."

"Well, their names' are clear now," Ana laughed, lightening the heavy atmosphere, "at least for what their ancestors did." Everyone, even the Davenports, were able to laugh a little at this remark.

"I think," Claudia continued, "that he killed Emma and Aaron Davenport since they knew about the debt and so that once the treasure was revealed great uncle Ian could claim his share."

"But they never found it, Claudia," Todd interrupted. "And Emma never said a word about where it was in her diary."

"Well either she didn't know where it was," Ana explained, "or else it really didn't mean that much to her once her father was gone. But I have a suspicion that maybe she did know. Claudia, will you hand me the diary for a sec?" Claudia did so, and after first feeling around in the black trunk, she examined it carefully.

After a long pause she felt along the spine and slowly extricated a folded up scrap of paper from between its outer cover and the stitched pages. "It's just as I expected," she announced to their puzzled faces after she was done. Remember she spoke of the plans to the house showing hidden corridors. Well, these are the plans."

Suddenly everyone's faces were aglow with excitement, except for Ana's.

"I don't mean to spoil your fun, guys, but I wouldn't get too enthusiastic yet."

"Why?" Caera took the plans before Ana could explain. Her loud, "Oh no!" effectively ended the mirth in the room.

"What is it, Caera?" Claudia demanded.

"The writing's all faded. And what's more, the doors aren't even marked. The paper's so creased, I can't tell what's a room and what's a passage. This won't be any help at all!" She practically threw it at her sister in exasperation.

"Careful, Caera!" Claudia scolded. "Well, at least we know now why no one but Emma ever knew that there were secret passages in this house. I wonder where they really are."

"And what's in them!" Ana's eyes shone.

"Let's go and look for an entrance," Alex suggested, a look of determination settling between his eyebrows.

Caera put the diary back into its longtime home and followed the others down the stairs to the library.

Three hours later the six of them flopped down on the living room sofa and several chairs in defeat. There were no openings anywhere to be found, yet they still weren't ready to deny their existence. Todd suggested that since nobody had discovered them in over a hundred years, they were probably well concealed, and the others were willing to agree.

Before the twins' friends left, they made a solemn promise to each other not to breathe a word about the diary, but that didn't keep Claudia or Caera from feeling edgy, though neither one of them talked about it.

Inside the Diary

It was a cold night, one best spent indoors. The family was gathered in the parlour for evening tea beside the fire. The only sound was an occasional rustle as papa turned the pages of his newspaper. But then the past few evenings had been unnaturally silent, owing to the premature death of Uncle James.

John Campbell found himself unable to concentrate on the story he was reading. He found himself thinking about his brother as he went over office accounts, but it was considerably easier to forget when he had work as an excuse.

Relaxing by the fire with his family brought back happy memories of the days when he and James were children, and he remembered how he used to take his younger brother to explore the wilderness that surrounded their beloved childhood home, the old wooden house outside of town.

James had retained his love of nature throughout his life, and John supposed that was why he had built his own home so far away, skirting the forest land.

The grandfather clock struck loudly, and Susanna and Collin stood to wish their father a good evening before they retired. The peaceful quiet resumed for a moment when a rapping sound came from the front door.

John got up to answer it, his son and daughter lingering behind him with watchful patience.

"Mrs. Brodie?! How very good ta see ye!" He exclaimed with some surprise in an undiluted Scottish accent. "Please come in."

"Thank you," she answered perfunctorily and allowed herself to be drawn into the parlour. She glanced around anxiously as she took a seat.

"I told maself not ta worry til I got here and see if the poor dear is alright. So where is Emma? Why is she no' by the fire? Is she off tae her bed already?"

John looked confused. "I don't understand. Emma's not here."

"Were you expecting to find Emma here?" Susanna enquired placidly. But inside, her heart leapt into her throat. She began to recall shadows of memory, nightmares perhaps, reaching her from some far-distant place...

...fearing that Emma had discovered him, it is believed that the murderer strangled her and dumped her body into the harbor on New Year's Eve, just four days after her father's death...

Then she heard Emma's voice, somehow changed and distorted, reading aloud...

...I shall chance a ride to Uncle John's house in town...

But somehow Susanna remained locked into the events, unable to relay any of the information she was receiving. Instead she could only listen, struck dumb, to Mrs. Brodie's near-hysterical explanation.

"She asked me to come live wi' 'er, ye ken, but then I got there and I see all the doors and windows left open and ken, it's rainin' awfy bad... Well, ken I could see something was wrong, so I called t'Emma , but no answer came. There wasn'y a sign of ;er, nor a note. I thought maybe she came here because Barney wasn'y there either."

Susanna, or the silent part of her that had understood the signs, drifted for a moment. It was as if her mind were wandering at the mention of Barney's name, and she couldn't see her surroundings any more. Her vision rose above the house and into the dark night.

Like a silent apparition, formless and invisible, her conscious descended into the town with frightening speed, and a distant blurry shape on the outskirts focused suddenly as the big chestnut horse, scraped with mud and red patches of its own dried blood where it must have fallen. Tangled vines and leaves wove a matted, sopping net over his feet.

Why was he here? Had something frightened him? Had he reared, fallen, and bolted in a panic, leaving Emma alone to face the danger?

Uncontrollably, her conscious rose and focused on the pier and the docks, where a great ship was just coming into the harbor. Foghorns echoed into the silent air. Something floated dark on the water's surface by the pier, tossing limply on the stormy waves.

Horrified, Susanna was jolted back to the parlour room where Mrs. Brodie was sobbing. "Oh the poor dear, supposin' something awfy bad has happened to 'er?

The other Susanna began to worry now, even though it was as if she hadn't seen or heard the strange visions. Her intuition was telling her that something had happened; warm, fat tears rolled from her eyes. Everyone soon agreed that Emma must be found, so Susanna fetched an oil lantern while Collin and papa hurried away to get their coats.

Not wanting to wait for the others in her desperation, Susanna opened the front door and called out into the dark, misty air.

"Emma!" her voice echoed down the street. No answer came but the distant sound of waves lapping the shore.

She sat on the step and buried her head in her arms, regretting that she would come too late.

When Susanna lifted her head again, she blinked twice, afraid she was hallucinating. Suddenly it all came back to her. Lights danced in the puddles of melted snow lining the streets, and a cold wind made her shiver as she sat barefoot in her pajamas on the front doorstep of the house.

Salty tears lingered on her lips and dried tear trails made her cheeks a stiff, itchy mask. Her tangled hair flapped in the wind.

Ana stood and stared into the night one last second before opening the front door and returning to her bedroom.

It was the middle of March, almost time for spring break, and Claudia was despairing. They still hadn't found a hidden door, and no more clues had been discovered in the last week and a half. At school, however, life was returning to normal, as people tired of the treasure rumors.

Of course, Caera and Claudia still had their suspicions where Marie was concerned, but after a while her gossip column steadily moved on to concerns of more importance to the student body. The last afternoon before spring break had her out and about, asking everyone if they had plans and if they would share them.

As Claudia fumbled her locker combination, Ana came from around the corner to meet her for lunch. The hallway was busy and noisy, and there was a festive mood in the air coupled with an anxious restlessness. Claudia knew the warm weather that had unexpectedly come in from southwestern fronts had everyone thinking of baseball, sunbathing, swimming, and various other activities unrelated to school. That, plus the fact that it was Friday afternoon.

"Where's Caera?" Ana asked, scanning the hallway.

"Oh, she's at a swim meet at the high school."

"And she didn't tell me about it?" Claudia shrugged.

"Maybe she didn't mention it in case she lost, but I don't think so. She's been acting kind of strange recently, you know, forgetting things. I mean more than usual, that is," she added with a laugh.

Ana didn't say it, but she had noticed the same thing was happening to Claudia of late. That was partially the reason she had decided not to reveal her dream just yet. Ana shivered inwardly. It had just been a dream hadn't it?

"Well, I wanted to have you both here when I suggested it, but anyway, here it is. You see, I was thinking we should take the diary to the capital, to that museum that Marie and her friends went to--you remember, from the story I told you that Jessica blabbed to me in a moment of weakness?"

There was no way she could know, but Ana suspected the dream experience had been the same for the twins, and after she dreamed about Susanna, she had spent several days considering what they should do with the diary. She realized that they would never have any peace until Emma did.

"Yeah, I remember it. But we have to talk to the others about it before we decide to go ahead and do this. I'm sure they'll agree, though. It's a good idea, Ana."

"Ok. Fine." They had better agree, she thought, if not on this idea then on something else, before she had the chance to dream again.

"Hello, Alex?"

"No this is Andrew. Caera?"

"No, this is Claudia. Ok. Listen up. Ana thinks it would be a good idea if we took the diary to the museum tomorrow, to see if we can get someone there to announce it or whatever to the general public."

"But why now? We know what really happened. You found the diary so you wouldn't be having those dreams anymore, and it worked, so what else is there?"

"Are you forgetting about clearing your ancestor's name?"

"Oh yeah." Claudia sighed and he continued. "But how are we going to get there?"

"We've already worked that out. We'll take a bus. All you have to bring is the fare and yourselves." Claudia laughed. "And just tell your parents you're going into town to look at... comic books? bikes? sports stuff? I dunno. Whatever you guys usually go shopping for. Okay?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Look, I know you probably hate to trick your parents, but we can't tell them the truth yet. We were going to surprise everybody, remember?"

"Yeah..."

"Right, so you'll tell Alex and Todd?"

"Sure."

"Well then we'll see you tomorrow, bright and early. I'll call you later tonight with the exact times. Don't forget. Bye!"

"Goodbye."

Caera woke with a shiver and a start. It was raining hard outside, and her bedroom shutters had come open, straining on their hinges and banging against the wall. The moon was full, casting silver-blue beams through her opened window and lighting her room with an eldritch midnight glow. She got up to close the shutters and resume her sleep, but suddenly her breath caught when she caught a glimpse of someone walking towards the guest house outside. It was Claudia.

Her feet thumped down the stairs, making soft slipper music. In one hand she held another pair for her sister. She opened the front door quietly, so as not to wake her parents, and then ran over the hard earth and wet, mossy, muddy grass to her sister. Claudia was not far now from the guest house. When Caera caught up to her, her eyes were open wide, but she was sleeping, mumbling softly,

"...safely away from here..." Caera shook her vigorously, and she started to sob. A moment later she seemed to snap out of it, and her crying intensified. Caera put her arm around her sister's shoulder and tried to hush her. She was freezing cold, and Caera made her put the slippers and her robe on before they returned to the house.

Claudia glanced at her wristwatch. It was already twelve fifteen, and the boys still hadn't made an appearance. Another bus rattled its way down the road across from the library in the central part of town. The bus station was crowded, and she figured that particular bus was headed to the northeast suburbs. She looked around for her sister and her friend. She spotted Ana eating a tunafish and tomato sandwich she had bought from a vendor's stall to substitute for the breakfast she hadn't had that morning, and Caera was off somewhere, looking at the screen of departures and arrivals. Claudia sighed and hoped they wouldn't miss the bus to the capital.

The girls had told their parents they were going to be window shopping in town all day, but really they were to meet with the Davenports and Todd to go to the museum that morning. They'd been there a couple of times with family, and even once on a school field trip, but they hadn't gone in several years, and Claudia was looking forward to it. She looked at her watch again. Another fifteen minutes had passed, and the first bus, the one they had been going to take, was leaving. She sighed and went to a nearby bench to sit down.

Ana had finished her sandwich and came over from where she had been eating under an umbrella-shaded table.

"So what's the deal? Why aren't they here yet?"

"I dunno." Claudia couldn't help recalling the Davenports she knew and hated of old. "But if we don't take the next bus, we'll have to put this off till next week."

"No way!" Ana said this so vehemently that a few people on the quay turned around. Claudia wondered at that, but felt similarly strongly about it. And anyway, how could the Davenports stand them up on something so important?

"Ok, then. So if they're not here we go without them?" Ana nodded. "All right. I'll go tell Caera."

An hour and a half later the bus was nearing their stop. They had been traveling through the city center for about fifteen minutes, stopping at several red lights and getting wedged bumper to bumper at times by traffic jams, but now the museum was in sight. The bus drove into the far right lane and disembarked its passengers. Caera had to nudge Claudia and Ana awake, but soon all three were mounting the great stone steps of the museum and walking past the twin lion sentries on either side of the thick oak doors.

On the inside, sports shoes squeaked on the gleaming floors, and a low mumbling of scrambled conversations rolled into their ears like a tide. Ana seemed to know where she was going, though, and weaved their way through the throngs and the various sections of the museum to the display cases of local pieces.

"This is where Marie and the others went for clues. There's supposed to be a curator's office around here or something. Maybe someone in there could lead us to whoever's in charge." Ana looked around hopefully for a sign and soon spotted the office she was looking for.

It was located at the corner next to where two pathways met, near the center of the room, and there was a plaque on the door which read: Professor Glenn Hedrick. The door was slightly ajar, and the three girls heard someone inside talking on the telephone. Caera rapped softly on the oaken door and peered in, pulling her head out a second later.

"There's just one guy in there at a desk, but he didn't see me because he was turned around on the swivel chair."

"Well, so what are we waiting for!" Ana pushed her friend forward. "Let's go in and wait for him to notice us." Caera went hesitantly inside, followed by Ana and Claudia. It was another few minutes before the man on the phone finished his conversation and slammed the receiver down in agitation.

"How dare he tell me there's no more—Oh!" He had swung his chair back around and noticed the three girls for the first time. He couldn't stop staring at them for several long moments, but even when he finally greeted them and asked if he could help them, Claudia got the strangest feeling that he already knew them, and there was something else she could not read in that stare that unsettled her.

She looked at her sister's face and saw an expression there that must have resembled her own. Nevertheless, she reached for her satchel and withdrew the diary and copies of it, which were neatly wrapped up in protective plastic, while Ana was explaining.

"Well, Professor Hedrick, we need to speak to whoever's in charge about something very important." He was now regarding them with amused interest, his fingers steepled and elbows resting on the desk.

"I see. Well, you've stepped into the right office, then." He looked at Claudia fidgeting with the snap on her bag. "Is that something you'd like to show me?"

"Yes," Claudia answered. "You see, we've been trying to find this for half a year now, mostly for personal reasons really, and well... well, you'll see. I'll just open it and let you ask the questions." Claudia began unfolding the plastic and brought the diary into full view.

The professor looked like he still didn't know what it was, so she brought it over to him and flipped it open to the first page. He glanced down at it and scanned for only a few seconds before he turned three shades of red.

"I don't believe it.." he stammered.

"Believe it," Caera beamed triumphantly.

"Why this is... this is... amazing!" He gaped in awe for a few moments, then snapped out of it and began flipping excitedly through the pages, almost madly, Claudia thought. "It must say something about where the Campbell treasure is located." He flipped faster, prompting Claudia to lay a hand on the diary.

"Be careful with it. Look, it doesn't say anything about it. We've read it already." The professor's look of rapture was suspended in mid-air along with the rest of his body. "But it does finally reveal once and for all who really killed James and Emma Campbell, and we want to get that information published." The professor recovered his composure, smoothing his hand over his hair and closing his eyes.

"Yes, of course. I'll see to it that it's done." He reached for the diary again, but Claudia moved it out of his grasp.

"No, we're keeping this for now, but we made copies of every page for you to keep here in the museum."

"Are you serious? My colleagues will need to see the original to believe that it is what you claim—"

"In that case they can schedule an appointment and we'll bring it," Claudia countered, "but in the meantime we would feel better if it remained in our possession. We'd know it was safe. I'm sure you understand, Dr. Hedrick." The professor looked as though he had been slapped but answered,

"I think I do."

On the bus trip home no one said very much. Claudia was worried that she didn't trust Dr. Hedrick but was angry at herself that she should be so distrustful when she should have been ecstatic that he had agreed to help them publish the diary. Caera felt similarly about the man, and even Ana was having her doubts now, though she was sure they were ungrounded. At about five-thirty the bus returned to town, and Ana's mother arrived fifteen minutes later with news that their parents had said the twins could stay for dinner. They cheered up when they heard that the Robinsons were ordering out for pizza.

As soon as they came through the back door they headed for Ana's room. In the living room Jason was lounging on the couch watching Love Connection, and on her way up the stairs Ana asked casually if he had seen Erica lately. Jason responded with a look-that-could-kill. Caera, Claudia, and Ana collapsed on Ana's bed, still giggling.

"Okay you guys," Ana said when she finished laughing. "So what do you want on the pizza?" Claudia stopped abruptly and stared at her friend, amazed that she had actually asked.

"Canadian bacon, mushroom, and onion, of course. Is there any other kind?" Caera looked skeptical.

"If you hold the mushroom there is."

"You can pick them off."

"You can get another topping."

"No way! It isn't the same. And besides," Claudia had a sneaky look on her face, "you got it your way the last time, so it's my turn this time, and I say the mushrooms stay." Caera looked defeated--Claudia had resorted to fairness; Ana looked relieved that they had finally agreed. "Well, now that that's settled," Claudia continued, "what are we going to do about Alex, Andrew, and Todd?"

"We could walk over to the Davenports' house later," Caera smirked, "and personally rearrange their faces!"

"Come on Caera, be serious."

"I am. We should go over there after dinner and demand an explanation."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Ana concurred.

"Boys, some of your friends are here to see you," Mrs. Davenport called upstairs after inviting the girls inside. In the foyer Dudley gazed lovingly up at the three girls with his huge, round, sad eyes and wagged his tail frenetically. There was some noise upstairs, and Mrs. Davenport went back towards the living room. Dudley followed her when she promised a treat and in a moment the door shut.

A minute or two later Alex and Andrew walked down the stairs to see three angry faces staring up at them. Alex was already in his pajamas and was wearing a milk moustache, and Andrew had from the looks of it hastily thrown on some clothes after his shower just when they had arrived.

"Hi guys," Alex waved before he had reached the middle of the stairway.

"Don't 'hi guys' us," Claudia retorted.

"Yeah," Caera interjected. "You stood us up today."

"We didn't mean to," Andrew protested, "and we didn't forget, either. Mom's car broke down this morning, and Dad took the other one to the airport on Thursday, so we had no way of getting to the station. We even called your houses, but you'd all already left."

"Yeah, and we spent half the day waiting to be towed and the other half in the car repair shop." Alex sighed.

"Well, that's okay then, since it wasn't your fault." Ana relented.

"We're sorry for not trusting you, too." Caera added. She wasn't sure if they were going to be miffed that the girls had assumed they had not showed up on purpose, but Alex was grinning now, obviously happy to see them.

"In that case, tell us what happened at the museum."

It was Sunday night at the Campbell house. A cool wind was rising outside, balmy and redolent of the smells of early spring. Trees had begun to show spots of green where their buds had opened after the warmth at the weekend, but they couldn't really be seen anyway, except where a few random boughs swayed near the upstairs windows. The sky was a blanket of ebony, lit by stars that seemed to shine red and blue.

Inside the upstairs guestroom, Caera, Claudia, and Ana snuggled under the covers. Ana's bags rested on the floor near the fold-up trays they'd had dinner on. A few cans of rootbeer lay fallen by the pizza trays. Claudia couldn't sleep though, even looking about at the familiar sights of the room. Despite the fact that the diary was going to be revealed to the public, she couldn't allay her own doubts that everything would be okay. Caera would say that she was just being a worrywart like always--maybe she was right though. Maybe she should just try to fall asleep. If she could just block out everything and think only about the wind outside. It was so hypnotic. Claudia closed her eyes.

And opened them. The sun shone brightly through the opened window, and the wind was still blowing. Except for herself, the bed was empty; she had awakened with her legs sprawled out over the entire length of it. Swinging her feet over the sides, she left the guestroom and went downstairs to find Caera and Ana, who she imagined were microwaving blueberry muffins for breakfast. She was wrong. Someone had made fresh biscuits, and the smell wafted to her while she was still somewhere in the living room.

"Hi, Claudia," her sister greeted her when she entered the kitchen. Ana had her mouth full of biscuit.

"Hi, guys. Why didn't you wake me up?"

"You wouldn't wake up when I shook you, so we left you in bed. Wanna biscuit?" Caera answered offhandedly.

"Sure." Claudia reached for three and then for the butter, honey, and peach preserves. The kitchen clock said ten thirty-seven. A few minutes passed as the girls sat down to eat at the table.

"God, I'm bored." Caera announced. "What say we go for a walk and get outta this house." She stared languidly at her biscuit as honey dripped out onto her plate. Dabbing at the puddle with the unbuttered side, she took another mouthful before adding, "It's not like there's much else to do, considering mom left with the car without telling us where she was going at seven o' clock in the morning, even though she has the week off and plenty of time to do whatever it was she felt was so important that she had to abandon her children with nothing to do."

"Well, where's dad?"

"Hello? Where have you been the past forty-eight hours? Dad's on a business trip and he doesn't get back 'til tonight. You were there when mom dropped him off at the airport." Caera sounded exasperated.

"Great. Grumpy and irritable. What side of the bed did you get up on?"

"Lay off, will ya? I was just looking forward to enjoying some of this summery weather during my spring vacation and since there's nowhere to go and no one around, I think we might as well try to have a little fun. Why do you think I made biscuits this morning? I'm sick of lying around like a potato all winter. We oughtta do something--show some motivation." Caera got up to take their dishes to the sink. Claudia noticed the large stack of dirty plates and utensils but chose not to respond to Caera's last remark.

"Yeah well, I guess it'd be fun to go on a walk. I've been meaning to tell you guys about this dream I had, but it's kinda hard to say." Ana broke in in an early-morning whisper.

"Yeah? I thought something was bothering you, Ana. Let's go get dressed." Caera started to head to the door. "Hurry up, Claudia!" She called somewhere between the kitchen and the stairs.

Ten minutes later, all three of them were nearly ready.

"Perfect. I've waited all winter to be able to wear these." Claudia admired her reflection in the mirror: comfy shorts, ponytail, light jersey, attire that screamed for spring.

"I'm ready to go," Ana called from the bathroom, her head appearing in the doorway. "Just gimme a second to brush my teeth."

Caera was pulling on her hiking boots, a casual pair that she had received for Christmas from a relative who thought her Paul Bunyan spirit "cute", not at all flattering to her way of thinking. And she would have even gone as far as to consider the plush, suede, nondurable pair of ankle-high stylish boots insulting if they didn't match her khaki shorts so well.

Ana emerged from the bathroom just as Caera opened the door.

"If we get back before lunch, maybe mom'll take us into town for a milkshake. I hear your brother got a job at the malt shop on Main Street, Ana. Ya think he'll give us a break on the price?" Claudia led the way down the stairs.

"If mom comes home at all." Caera spat as she thunked every step with heavy feet.

"Hey, I think I hear someone." Ana called them to attention and the conversation died when they all heard a car approaching from the driveway.

"Looks like we can plan on an early lunch." Caera grinned.

"Ssh, you idiot." Claudia waved them silent as they stepped into the foyer. Then she pointed at the far-off dining room window that afforded a view of the driveway. "That's not mom's car," she whispered softly as a white sportscar edged up the driveway. The girls waited a moment longer when a familiar figure got out of the driver's seat. It had only been three days since they had gone to see him, and they recognized Dr. Hedrick at once. He would be heading for the front door in a matter of seconds.

Claudia's instincts took over. She ran for the cover of the left side of the house, away from the dining room window, praying he hadn't spotted them yet. Down the corridor she hurried, finding herself in the library and at a dead end, closely flanked by Caera and Ana.

"Do you think he saw us come this way?" Ana whispered.

"I dunno. I hope not. Whaddaya think he's here for?" Caera panted, too scared to breathe very loudly, but her lungs were near bursting.

"The diary of course, and the treasure if he can find it."

Claudia stated almost calmly, but there were tears in her eyes.

"Oh my God, do you think he's gonna kill us?" Ana's eyes went wide.

"Calm down, Ana. We're probably just overreacting." Caera took a deep breath. "Maybe he'll go away if no one comes to the door." A moment of silence passed as they waited for the doorbell to ring or the sounds of a car ignition. Or the sound of breaking glass.

But that wasn't what they heard.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" A voice came from the front foyer, inside the house. "Mrs. Campbell, girls, is anyone home?" The voice got louder as the intruder's footsteps came closer.

Caera wanted to scream, but she felt choked. "The closet," she croaked and motioned to the storage room at the back of the library.

The three girls nodded in unison and tip-toed to the little room, pulling the door to behind them. The heavy door whined in protest as they pulled it shut and waited stock still for any more sounds.

The door of the library opened loudly. Hard steps sounded on the smooth mahogany floor, followed by heavy breathing. "Hello?" Dr. Hedrick called loudly. "I could swear I heard a noise in here." He muttered under his breath before turning and exiting the library.

Claudia sighed as they heard his retreating footsteps.

"We've got to get out of here before he finds us here." Caera insisted.

"But if we open this door, he might hear us!" Ana whispered fearfully, holding on to the handle tightly.

"Damn it, Dad! I told you you should get this door fixed. All it takes is a little oil!" Caera was close to crying. "I didn't think it was going to end this way!" Ana leaned forward and gave her a hug.

"Help me block this door." Claudia suggested.

"With what? Books and batteries?" Caera shook her head. "Let's face reality. There's not much we can do."

"Maybe you're right, Caera, but what else can we do?"

"He'll leave if we're lucky." Caera went to sit down near the bookcase, her back resting against the wall, her feet propped up against the old wooden frame.

A few minutes passed when they heard footsteps again.

"He's coming back. What now?" Claudia asked. Ana shook her head.

"Maybe we can use this thing," Caera kicked angrily at the bookcase with her feet as tears sprang to her eyes.

"Are you crazy? Be quiet or we'll get--"

"Oh my God. I think it moved, Claudia."

"Shouldn't it do that?" Ana questioned with her ubiquitous sarcasm. "You know, force on an object makes work. That thing has mass if I'm not mistaken. Mrs. Johnson could tell you all about it if we ever see her again. Of course it moved, Caera. Just get the stupid thing over here."

"No, I mean you didn't feel this--how it moved." Claudia watched as Caera's eyes grew misty, and she knew her sister would begin to babble at any moment. "We've never tried to as far as I can remember," Caera added thoughtfully. "Seemed like it belonged here and we didn't have a reason to move it--" she gasped. "It all makes sense now! The old books we found in here were connected to the story. Remember last time when you hit your head, Claudia? Then in the dreams Emma's father had a study and a library--this room used to have a window before they filled it in to remodel this wing! Our library was his study and this--this was his library!"

"What are you babbling about?"

"Just get over here and help me. And push harder than you ever have in your life."

Something in the way Caera was talking brought them to her side. Shoulder to shoulder, they gave a great push, and the bookcase gave inch by inch. Faint light flooded like a beacon into the dark little room. Suddenly the bookcase gave way completely to reveal a passage behind the wall and a descending stone stairway.

"Let's go!" Ana shouted excitedly. They reached the third step when the bookcase swung back into position, triggered by some hidden mechanical device activated by the pressure of their feet.

The stairway was steep and led down about twelve feet below the house. Where it ended a narrow passageway began, wide enough only for one person. The girls followed it for a moment when it widened to a four foot by six foot area. Then the passageway continued as it had before for about twenty-five feet. Though it was less dim than the closet had been, the passage was dark enough to hamper their speed, and they moved slowly, fearing that there might be no exit.

Caera almost tripped over the step when she came to it. At the end of the passageway a staircase identical to the first one led upwards but appeared to be roofed by a slab of stone. A crack around the stone and gaps in the roof let in the dim daylight that had guided their progression.

"Great. We're sealed in." Ana announced.

"Do you see a way out, Caera? Maybe there's a lever or something that triggers the roof."

"Oh yeah, like the bookcase just slid open for us by itself." Ana sighed. "Let's just try to push it aside. Move over a bit, Caera."

"Do you think that will work? What if that thing falls and crushes us? If we don't do this right, it may be geared to kill us."

"Well we have to try something. We can't just stay down here. He may still be in the house. I'm not going back to be strangled. I think we should take our chances."

"Well, I'm game. I just wanted to be sure you felt that way before we do anything stupid." Caera moved aside and Ana squeezed in beside her. Both girls dug their fingers into the earth around the stone near the cracks and got a grip around the edge before pushing it hard. Claudia steadied them from below, making sure that neither of them fell.

In a moment, they felt the stone begin to give. Caera could swear she felt it sliding into a groove, but time and decay had deteriorated the workings of the exit and layers of dirt had fallen and covered the stone. It also seemed to have sunk several centimeters, and they had to push a little upward to get it to move.

All at once, the stone slid quickly aside, and Caera and Ana nearly fell with the force they had been using to push it. Once they climbed to the surface, it appeared that they were inside a small aboveground tunnel only twenty inches wide and a few feet long. The floor was all stone with dirt in between. At both sides the walls were wooden, but to their left, smooth white plaster peeked from holes in the rotting wood.

At the end of the tunnel, there was a tiny opening. Caera squeezed through it tentatively at first to ascertain their position. To her left, she could make out through the gaps in the wall the rear of the guest house where it met the walls of the remaining stables no one in the family had really used since the early part of the century. Turning to her right, she found that she could just squeeze into the tiny hay-littered room. Tripping a little on a clod of dirt, she nearly fell into the small musty stall in front of her.

"We're out, you guys!" she called back into the passage. "You guys can seal the tunnel now." She extended an arm to help Ana through. They waited silently for Claudia to follow.

"Thanks for leaving me with the dirty work," she said sarcastically as soon as her head came into view. "But I didn't have to do much. I just gave it a little push and it snapped back into place. Scary." She shook her head.

"I'll tell you what'll be even scarier--if we don't get outta here." Ana whispered.

"I'm with you, Ana. Let's get out of here." Caera led the way to the door once Claudia was on her feet.

"Where exactly can we go? He might see us if we hightail it for the woods. And he's got a car. I don't relish the idea of being mowed down." Claudia interjected from behind.

"Don't worry. Everything's taken care of. I've got a plan." Caera turned around to smile at them.

That was when Claudia really began to worry.

They had tiptoed to the back of the house without being seen, or so they believed. Anyway, Professor Hedrick's car was still on the driveway. Caera left them at the back door to carry out her plan. They watched as she crept into the garage on all fours and emerged a few moments later with a set of keys grasped in her hands to keep them from jangling.

"What are those for?" Claudia indicated the keys with her chin.

"Dad always keeps an extra set of keys in the freezer, just in case he loses the others or gets locked out."

"So?"

"So," Caera paused for effect, "he has a set of every key on this little darlin'." She swung it around once for effect. "Now let's go."

"Where?" Ana asked innocently. Caera was a little disappointed in them. Hadn't they gotten the message yet?

"Just follow me." She ordered and led the way back into the garage.

"Get in." Claudia glanced up at her father's shiny electric blue car. In spite of the situation, she wanted to laugh. Leave it to Caera to come up with an escape like this.

The car purred beautifully the first try. Caera wasn't sure how to use a stick shift, or how to reverse for that matter, but she figured she'd have to learn. Quickly.

Ana and Claudia were both in the front beside her.

"Hurry!" Ana coached, casting worried glances backwards towards the house now that they were making some heavy duty noise.

The car screeched backwards at forty-five miles an hour to the road, where Caera backed right and got ready to switch gears. Claudia was trying to help her move the stick (which always looked easier to budge when her father was driving) when Ana let out a shriek.

"Oh my God, he's coming!" All three girls looked up as Dr. Hedrick hurried across the lawn, calling to them. "Movit!" She yelled and began furiously rolling up the windows.

Caera didn't hesitate in following her advice. They took off like a bullet down the road, sure that no one would catch them as they fled to the safety of friends and family.

The car bumped up and down and from side to side as Caera swerved and coasted over road that wasn't built for such speed. Claudia gripped the carseat tightly in terror, but when she did get enough courage to open her eyes, she realized they hadn't crashed yet. Feeling better, she glanced over at her twin. Caera had stopped jacking the steering wheel so much and actually looked as though she might become a capable driver, one day. Ana had her head craned around to see if Dr. Hedrick was following, since Caera didn't dare take her eyes from the road, even to check the rearview mirror. There was no sign of him, however, and they weren't far from Ana's house.

"Do you guys hear something?" Claudia scanned the road ahead.

"Nope." Caera slowed the car down a little so that she could figure out how to stop it before they parked at Ana's house.

No sooner than they were out of the car, Ana's front door flew open. To their surprise, Marie and Mrs. Summit stood beside Ana's mother, who ran out to hug her child and the twins in turn.

"Thank God you're all right!" She exclaimed before ushering them indoors.

Ana gave her mother a questioning look, but Mrs. Summit cut in before Mrs. Robinson got the chance to explain things.

"Marie heard everything with those radio walkie talkie things she gave you. Then she came running in to me with some story about a murderer breaking into your house. Well, naturally we called the police, but they said it'd take a moment to get a car out here. Elizabeth was just about to try to reach your mother when you girls pulled up outside."

"I think I'd better get to it," Mrs. Robinson said before excusing herself.

Caera nudged her sister's shoulder as Marjorie Summit gave her a plastic smile. "I don't get it--Marie didn't give us any 'walkie talkie things'." Suddenly she remembered Mrs. Summit's disappearance at the Christmas Party, and realized that either she or Marie must have bugged their library. After all, Marie had guessed that something was going on long before the treasure parties formed. But how did Marie have access to a bug or know how to use it?

"Your mother is on her way," Mrs. Robinson called as she re-entered the foyer. "She's over at the Davenports' helping Mrs. Davenport organize her yard sale for the church benefit. We're lucky because she just went inside to fix them some lemonade. She said she'd get here as soon as possible."

"What about Mrs. Davenport?" Ana asked.

"She's coming with the boys just as soon as their friend gets there, I think."

Explanations

As it turned out, Mrs. Campbell and the Davenports arrived at nearly the same time. The twin's mother was confused about what had happened, and her daughters were trying to tell the story at the same time when the Davenports pulled into the driveway.

The party that had gathered on the front porch turned to see the boys hurrying from the car and running across the lawn, worried expressions on their faces.

"What happened?" Todd wanted to know.

"Thank God you're okay." Alex added, suppressing a sudden urge to hug Claudia, at the same time amazing himself that he was so concerned.

"Professor Hedrick came after the diary," Caera blurted.

"And us!" Ana finished.

"But we managed to get out--just like the diary hinted. There was a way out of James' study for the murderer, and I don't mean the window." Claudia added.

"What are you girls talking about?" Mrs. Campbell had an amused expression on her face. "And what is all this nonsense about a diary?"

At that moment, a familiar sound came to the attention of the six best friends. Marie had her pen and paper out, her face lit up by the knowledge that the moment had revealed, the discovery that the girls had kept secret since they had found what Emma left behind.

Mrs. Campbell spoke loudly then to get the girls' attention again. "Does this have something to do with the break-in Elizabeth told me about?"

"Oh mom, it's terrible. We went into town to talk to someone about publishing Emma's diary. We found it. The one everyone's been talking about for years. But the guy from the museum came to our house to get it!"

"Professor Hedrick?" Mrs. Campbell laughed loudly. "I told him to make himself at home if I didn't get back before he arrived. I was hoping to get home at eleven or so. You see, your father and I knew Dr. Hedrick in college. In fact, he was one of your father's best friends. He called the other day to tell me that he'd had a visit from you girls, and I suggested that he drop by for lunch this afternoon.

"He wasn't after your diary, girls. He donated most of what is in the museum from his private collection. He was considering making an acquisition, he told me, but he wasn't sure about how much it was worth and asked if I could give him some advice. I told him I didn't see how I could be of help at the time, but it seems clear that he was preparing to make you girls an offer on behalf of the museum."

No one said a word for a moment. Even Marie seemed to be having difficulty holding her pen.

At that moment the police car arrived on the scene.

The two officers got out of the car with one prisoner in tow--Dr. Hedrick--who appeared to be extremely baffled by his predicament. The beefier one introduced himself brusquely to the adults as Officer Snyden, then directed himself to Mrs. Campbell, asking her to come down to the station to start the procedure for pressing charges.

When she told him that she wasn't going to and that this was all just one big misunderstanding, however, Dr. Hedrick was released (relief all over his face) and the story was explained for those who had not already heard it. Satisfied, the policemen returned to their duties in town.

It was an awkward drive back to the Campbells' house. Dr. Hedrick rode with the Campbells and Ana in their car (Mrs. Robinson drove the other one back to the Campbell's house), followed by Todd and the Davenports. Marie and Mrs. Summit appeared frustrated that the little group was to part company so quickly, but Caera figured they wouldn't be in the dark until the Campbells managed to find Marie's electronic spy.

The girls had refused to explain anything, insisting that everyone come back to the house so that they could see for themselves. Once they arrived, Professor Hedrick left in his car, insisting that he had to get back despite Mrs. Campbell's protests that he should join them for lunch. After the girls' mother had secured a promise from him that he would come for a visit sometime, the three girls stood waving apologetically as he sped down the road.

Then they led the way into the Campbell's library.

"So what're ya gonna show us?" Andrew looked around, remembering the last time he'd been here. That was back at the beginning of his knowledge concerning the murder of Emma Campbell, before he and the others had really gotten involved. But even then, he'd felt that something important had yet to unfold here, something he hadn't wanted to admit at the time would have a lot to do with him.

That night he and Alex had been listening at the door, and he'd felt uneasy, unwilling to involve himself but realizing that Emma's story was too far connected with him to not become involved. Of course he hadn't thought so at the time, but he'd been warming to the idea that they were all meant to come together to solve the murder mystery that had wrongfully tarnished his ancestor's name throughout time.

"I told you I ran in here because we thought Dr. Hedrick had come to get us," Claudia began.

"Then I suggested we hide in the storage room in case he followed us," Caera continued, and the party moved to just outside the storage room door. It creaked open noisily, and the twins propped it open with a chair.

"I don't see anything," Todd announced as he peered into the little room.

"You're not supposed to, dummy," Ana teased. "Why do you think they call secret passages secret passages?"

"Secret passages?" The boys echoed excitedly.

Ana moved to the side of the bookcase and shoved while the boys watched. It seemed to give much easier than before, perhaps because the device had recently been triggered after so many years.

Single file they all descended the staircase, Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Davenport bringing up the rear.

"The passage continues up into the stables." Claudia updated. "Right up into that old wall you and Dad wanted to knock down but never got around to." She added, directing the last remark at her mother.

As they came into the wider space again, everyone stopped for a moment. The confinement of the narrow walls did feel a bit suffocating, but the boys were too excited about being in a real secret passage to mind. However, Alex was a little curious as to why the tunnel suddenly widened and then continued just as narrow afterwards.

"Maybe Emma's father was claustrophobic," Todd suggested.

"Maybe..." Caera looked ponderous. "I've got a hunch, you guys." She announced and started to feel the wall. "Didn't Emma's diary mention secret passages? Well, this is just one passage. Who's to say there aren't any more and that this isn't just a crossroads intersecting with another one. Come on, you guys, look for a lever or something!" She hadn't even finished speaking before all hands set to work at the walls.

Andrew turned to his right and started to push little blocks of stone. He was about to give up when it felt like one of them moved. Pushing it hard, he watched as the stone oozed backwards into the dirt, but nothing else happened.

"Drat!" he cursed, breaking the silence and drawing the others' attention. Claudia laid a hand on his shoulder.

"What happened?" she asked.

"This stone moved backwards, but that's all," he told her. True enough, one round, fist-sized stone in the wall had left a shadowy hole four inches deep where Andrew had pushed it.

"You know," Alex began, "there's gotta be a reason for that. 'Looks too perfect if ya ask me. See that wall," he observed. "The stones interlace like a brick wall until right about here. Maybe that hole is some kind of handle and that door opens into another passage."

"Alex, you're a genius!" Claudia shouted.

"Hey, what about me!"

Caera patted Andrew's shoulder. Then everyone began to push at the wall. Sure enough, the stone door swung back on its hinges. As they all moved forward into the wider passage, Todd looked back at the door and shut it part of the way again. The back of the door was wooden, the stone exterior merely a facade. A stone doorhandle stuck out where Andrew had pushed it.

"I see," Ana whispered. "That stone was there so that someone could shut this door without anyone else discovering this passage even if they managed to find a way down here."

"Well, then that must mean that there's something important down here," Caera started forward eagerly, but the room was pitch black as they moved away from the dim light of the other passage. "Great. Now how are we supposed to see anything?"

"Maybe this will help dear," her mother passed her something which turned out to be a flashlight.

"You're the greatest, mom." Caera called back, already shining the light about.

"I try."

"What do you suppose this room is for--" Ana began, but at that moment everyone's heart leapt into their throats. A beacon of light had landed across the corner of the room where four ancient Colonial chests had been stowed. Caera moved closer to inspect them as everyone watched, struck dumb. She lifted the latch of the closest chest.

"All this time, it's been right here," Claudia whispered. "Emma or her father must have hidden it here."

"The missing Campbell treasure." Andrew breathed, voicing the awe they all felt.

Everyone stood several moments just staring at the chest of gold coins. Claudia found the whole situation confusing. She had expected to feel so excited, like they all had whenever they got together to plan where to find it and how to spend it when they did. She felt relieved somehow, but even if she decided that they must have satisfied their ancestors' wish that the truth be known, a lingering presence of Emma remained here, guarding the chests. After all, hundreds of years before, she had been the last person to visit this room.

It seemed to her that the others felt it too; in any case, none of them rushed forward eagerly as they had all expected to do. Alex felt that he'd stepped across time. Staring at Caera, he imagined Emma standing there before the Campbell treasure, glad that she would have her revenge for her father's death by ensuring that his killer never found his prize. For the first time he was really able to imagine how she must have felt. It would always be a memory he carried with him.

Andrew felt relieved that everything had finally been resolved. The mystery had been the central part of his activities for the past few months, and now that it had ended, he felt as if something he'd been waiting for his whole life had at last taken place. The frustration and anticipation he'd known was leaving him. Even though he'd always tried to hide it by appearing not to care about anything, he did care about things, but it didn't hurt so much if he acted like nothing ever got to him. Maybe that was why he'd stuck that chewing gum on Caera's head in preschool--he'd wanted to get Caera's attention, but just didn't know how to.

Ana was remembering her dream as Susanna. She had felt so much affection for Emma in that dream, not merely pity or sympathetic understanding. She imagined that Susanna would have cried had she been here to see the reason her friend and cousin had been killed. How many times after her family moved to James' home had she wondered why it had happened and where Emma's diary was hidden? Susanna had never been able to read Emma's final message to her. So many unanswered questions. She, too, had never found peace of mind.

Todd reflected on the chance that he was included in this miraculous discovery, but he felt for his friends, and he was glad that they had found what they had been looking for, together.

Caera shone the light on the other chests and signalled for the others to help her carry them. Ana asked if they were going to open them down there, but Mrs. Campbell suggested that they bring them into the library first, so they all picked up a chest and headed back to the passage.

Caera's mood improved as they stepped from the dark storage room into the bright afternoon light of the library. Everyone sighed as they dropped the heavy loads they had been carrying and stood back a moment to catch their breath. Ana felt as if her arms had been dislocated, and her back ached from stooping over.

"Hadn't we better take a look inside these things?" Andrew interrupted the silence. "You guys all look like your cat just died. We're supposed to be enjoying this. They don't look too hard to open." He observed. "Just think what can be done with whatever's inside."

"You're right, Andrew." Caera agreed, but had to admit that she was a little nervous about opening the chests. What if there wasn't anything valuable inside? She put her hand on the lid of the chest she had carried.

The chests had decayed a little over time so that the lids came off easily. Everyone watched closely as one at a time their contents were revealed. The first contained a trove of old gold coins from the seventeenth century. Most were Spanish mixed with English shillings, crowns, and other coins minted during the reign of George I. A bag of early American coins had also been thrown into the first chest.

The second chest contained expensive jewelry and heirlooms, colonial glasses, and baubles. The third contained Colonial silverware fashioned out of pure silver. Caera thought that made sense, since she had read that there wasn't enough minted money to go around in Colonial Days, so people turned their silver into silverware to keep their wealth around them.

The largest and final chest had been dragged up by the two mothers. Inside, Emma's great-grandfather's clan Campbell sword. An old musket and a few pouches of gunpowder lay beside it as well as an original copy of the King James' Bible. Some old faded letters which proved to be from Emma's mother to her father and James' mother to him were also in the chest.

Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Davenport sequestered themselves away from the children, talking in hushed conspiratorial voices, and left the group of friends to themselves.

"Boy is dad gonna be surprised when he gets home," Caera laughed.

Before Mr. Campbell had even come home, the Summits had ensured that the news spread to the entire town and even across the county. Before long, the phones began to ring with enquiries, and the police assigned a security unit to guard the house once word reached the department that unknown millions of dollars were lying around on the library floor in the Campbell mansion, and a possible state of threat was established.

Meanwhile, after a long trip, Mr. Campbell was looking forward to steamed malted milk, his robe, slippers, and being with Mrs. Campbell on the sofa for an evening of Perry Mason on t.v. Maybe, if he was lucky, some of the Cadbury's chocolate he had bought at the grocery store the week before had even managed to escape the notice of the twins while he was gone, if they hadn't discovered his new hiding place.

But the phone was busy or broken, and when he couldn't get through to call for a ride from the airport, Mr. Campbell elected to take a cab. But he didn't expect to be stopped by the deputy sherriff while approaching his own home, nor to have to be escorted inside at the man's insistence.

Mrs. Campbell and the girls were inside in the front foyer, surrounded by cops roaming backwards and forwards and on dozens of phones that seemed to have sprouted like melons off the vines of cords twisting their way around the house. Mr Campbell swept his eyes around the room. Police in various office and street uniforms sat on his sofa (his eyes rested wistfully there for a moment), on the Queen Anne chairs in the living room, on lawn chairs, wooden chairs, stools, against tables, and the staircase. Nearly every one gripped a coffee mug from one of the Campbell's many sets as they munched on a deli's profusion of sandwiches. Mr. Campbell looked down and took in the coffee stains on the oriental rug with calmness, offhandedly wondering how many people had been manning the kitchen in whatever was going on around here.

Mr. Campbell could hear the sherriff's voice booming out through the hum from somewhere near the kitchen, "...biggest case in years... mayor has it made for the reelection... oh yeah.... you don't say?... Yeah, well, I'd personally like to shake hands with the fellow!.. Ha!Ha!Ha!... (Slap!)... yeah, well, you just keep trying to reach him okay? Ha!Ha!..."

The Deputy brought Mr. Campbell over to the circle around Mrs. Campbell, and the cops parted like the Red Sea to let him through. Mrs. Campbell greeted him with a smile that almost made him forget the stains on the oriental rug.

"Oh, there you are dear. I'm so glad you're home." In the background the twins were saying,

"Hi, Dad. Glad you're back." He looked over at them to make sure all of this wasn't frightening or disturbing them and was rather alarmed when they had their complacent, conspiratorial, we-know-something-you-don't-know looks on their faces, as if somehow they thought they were in control of the situation. He didn't get a chance to answer back, though, because Kate was continuing.

"Now, James, something's happened since you've been gone, and things around here are a little chaotic because of it, but everything's under control, and we're coming to grips with the situation." Why did he somehow think of that tangled mass of cords when she said that everything was under control?

"Well would someone mind telling me just what did happen?" Caera came running up to him, and Claudia followed to make sure that she wasn't beaten to the punch by her twin.

"Dad. You're not going to believe this," they began, "but we, well you see we were looking for it for months and--" Claudia sensed that Caera was about to rush ahead and spill the beans before she could and blurted out,

"We found Emma Campbell's diary!" ending in a triumphant grin, and appearing ruffled when her father looked at her mother for confirmation instead of satisfying her with a shocked expression. Caera saw this as her cue.

"But that's not all, Dad. It led us to the missing Campbell treasure, and that's why all the police are here!" Mrs. Campbell was nodding her head.

"Ohboy," Mr Campbell raised his hand to his temple. "I think I'd better sit down," he said, as a cop just vacated his spot on a picnic bench in the living room.

All that night and following day, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell spoke with the police, and then when federal representatives arrived in their starchy black suits and dark sunglasses, gleaming briefcases and gold watches, they spoke with them. Tax representatives and Museum curators (including Dr. Hedrick, who'd been researching the story for years and wanted to get the artifacts for his museum) continued to arrive for two or three more days, and the guesthouse saw more use that week than it had in several centuries. Both parents were given leave off work by their understanding bosses, once it was clear that the appearance of the tresasure was going to require several weeks of sorting out.

Caera and Claudia weren't allowed to leave the house until the furore died down and thought they were going to die of boredom. So Claudia took it upon herself to enter the inner sanctum of the conference room--the now debugged library--where she had seen her parents enter several days before.

Dozens of heads connected to the imposing figures of important personages looked up in startled unison as she opened the library door. Some appeared offended by the interruption, but Claudia was indignant. After all, it was she and Caera who had found the diary and the treasure, not them.

"Mom, can Ana come over today?" Claudia directed across the room to where she spotted her mom, wondering if she could even free up a telephone line to call her.

"Who is this Ana?" one of the federal men interrupted briskly. An informed person to his left leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

"Yes, honey, as long as you play upstairs, okay?" Mrs. Campbell answered tiredly.

"Thanks, mom," Claudia said as the heads resumed their positions over tables and tables of paper and continued their transactions, closing the door sofly behind her as she left. Caera waited on the other side of the door.

"Well?" she demanded.

"You got a phone?" Caera brought her hands around from behind her back to reveal a cordless. "Where'd you get it?"

"Let's just say I've been following the good ole sherriff around all morning, and he's snoozing on the couch right now."

"Great! Let's go upstairs! Beat ya!"

The doorbell rang a few minutes later, and Caera was down to get it before anyone else in the house could tell the little girl on the doorstep to go away. Caera led Ana through the house and up the stairs, much to the disapproving eye of the cops, and into Caera's bedroom. Claudia was sitting on top of Caera's blue comforter, and the three girls began their own conference when the door closed.

"Wow, so what's been going on guys?" Ana exhumed in one breath.

"You mean Marie hasn't filled you in?" Claudia teased.

"No, well, I guess the cops found Marie's bug because she's been asking me questions all day at school."

"School started today?" Caera asked as if she'd forgotten the concept.

"Yeah, silly, it's Monday. Anyway, you should have seen everyone today--it was like anarchy. Todd, the Davenports, and I disrupted every class we were in. No one was listening to the teachers. They just kept talking about the mystery, the diary, the treasure--pretty soon, the teachers gave up and started asking questions just like everyone else.

"Marie said that she wanted to interview us for this week's paper, and that next week she'll issue a special as soon as you guys get back and she can interview you, too. Ellison Davis said she was really sorry that you couldn't go outside yet, and so did Brian Anderson, and Jessica Ford wants to invite you two to her birthday party next week. She said it's going to be outside and that you should bring a swimsuit. I'm sure pretty soon she'll call you to give you all the details." There was a pause after Ana said this, and then Caera and Claudia and Ana burst suddenly into gales of laughter.

"Okay, now for the bad news," Ana resumed. "Mrs. Smith, Mr. Sudge, and Mr. Hoffmeyer gave me assignments for you guys in the chance that I got to see you. I've got them in my knapsack, but don't bother doing them yet. Just pretend like you never heard about them and you'll get a longer extension. Mrs. Winters just says 'bonjour' and don't forget to practice your French. "Oh, and Mrs. Johnson had a substitute today, and there wasn't any homework because Justin Porter hid that part of her notes under the overhead. Anyway, that's all that's really been going on at school. Except Alex and Andrew invited all of us to go with Todd and them rollerskating at the rink on Saturday, but I told them that I wasn't sure if you guys would be free until after then."

"Yeah, it looks like our jailers will still be deliberating for quite a while, but tell them that we'd love to do something when we get out of here." Caera tossed a kush ball aimlessly from one hand to the other.

"Well, we could go now, but we might be missed," Claudia sighed.

"What do you mean?" Caera looked up at her sister sharply.

"Well, I found another set of secret passages before the circus started..."

"You mean, not connected to the library?" Ana asked.

"No, it does connect, but you have to press a lever to revolve the door open into the treasure passage, and if you don't press it and go just along that passage, you can spy on the library, living room, and dining room. And the passage extends to the other side of the house and all around it." Claudia wore a wry smile, "And upstairs."

"Upstairs?" Caera and Ana looked at each other, wide-eyed.

`"Yup."

"Where is it?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Claudia hoisted herself up in one big jump off Caera's bed and proceded to the little fireplace on the wall nearest the guestroom.

"No!" Caera laughed. "That's the cheesiest place. It's always in the fireplace."

"No, it isn't. That's just where I hid the map I made of the tunnels." Claudia had hidden her map in a tin on the mantel, and got it out and walked to the closet. "Follow me, guys." They did, and Claudia jumped up on the second shelf and used a stick she had left there to push upward on a certain spot of the ceiling several feet to the right of her reach from the shelf. The ceiling slid open, and Claudia stood up and prodded it with the stick until the hole reached her and she could jump up inside. "Come on, guys, let's go."

Caera and Ana by turns crawled up into the passage and took a look around. Claudia had a flashlight in hand that she had left from her previous exploration. Illuminated by this light, they could see that the passage was lined with wood and extended in a branching cloverleaf at the intersection they found themselves in. On her map, Claudia had marked which sections led to her own room, the guestroom, and downstairs.

"Wow," Ana breathed. "This would be a hit for a slumber party. Do your parents know about this?"

"Not yet. Nobody but me does, and now you guys, too, but they'll probably find it once they have time to start looking, and in the meantime I thought we'd enjoy it ourselves."

"Good idea," Caera grabbed the flashlight and started for the pathway that led downstairs, Claudia and Ana hurrying to catch up with her. Caera proceded down for maybe forty feet before she came to a very narrow spiral stone stairway.

"Be careful, Caera, it's very steep," Claudia called out from behind her as her sister descended. They got successfully to the bottom without injury and continued around turns until they reached the intersection with the library passage. Here Caera went right with the corridor and continued until she could hear voices coming from the library.

The wall was thin, but if there was a device to open the wall and allow them to spy, they couldn't see it. The girls could hear the library door open and close several times amid a dull roar of paper and voices and wondered what was going on. Soon the noise began to die down, and they could hear more distinctly people expressing their farewells.

"Quick," Claudia said, "we'd better get back before we're missed."

A few minutes later, the girls heard a knocking on Caera's bedroom door, and Mrs. Campbell entered. "There you are, girls. Hello, Ana."

"Hi, Mrs. Campbell."

"Girls, I thought you'd like to know what's going on. Your father and I have decided to keep some of the personal artifacts as family heirlooms in the bank and to sell the rest to museums around the country. Of course, there are taxes to pay, but not so many since the money is in the family and was found on our own property.

"I'm going to need you to keep out of the way until after this afternoon, though, because there will be some movers arriving to transport the items to where they are going, and they have to load the trucks under heavy security, but after that, things ought to die down."

"So when are we going back to school?" Caera asked the inevitable.

"Well, I don't really see any reason why you can't go back by tomorrow or Wednesday."

"Aw, mom..."

"Well, Caera, half an hour ago you were complaining that your house was a prison!" Ana teased.

"Yeah, but that was when I thought that I wouldn't have to go back right away, and I thought the commotion would have time to die down at school."

"Gotta face it sometime, Caera," her mother tried to say reassuringly, but didn't quite succeed. Just then Mr. Campbell poked his head through the doorway.

"Kate, phone." Mrs. Campbell went downstairs to pick up the phone in the living room, but Mr. Campbell lingered in the doorway. "One thing's been bothering me, girls."

"What's that, Dad?"

"How did you find the diary? When I was your age, I looked for it with my friends, too, but we didn't find anything. Not one clue." Caera and Claudia looked at one another and then at Ana, unsure if the explanation involving the dreams that had found its way to Marie and Dr. Hedrick from the xerox packet Caera had lost months before would reach the ears of their father, or even if it already had.

In the commotion of dealing with the treasure, they weren't even sure if anyone had yet asked about the clues they had found. But now Caera found herself going to her drawer, taking out the inscriptions they had found in the books and on the survival trip, and showing them to her father. He scrutinized them one after the other thoughtfully for several long moments and then laughed.

"I don't see how you girls pieced anything together from these cryptic messages, especially since one didn't come from Emma at all."

"What do you mean?" All three girls looked aghast.

"This 'x marks the spot' inscription you must've found on your survival trip, right."

"Right, so?"

"Well, girls, that slab was left there by yours truly, donkeys years ago, when my friends and I organized our own treasure hunt. I made it in shop class, and we pretended to be pirates!" Mr. Campbell had a starry-eyed look in his eye that smacked of nostalgia.

"Really?" Claudia and Caera felt their stomachs sink.

"Yes, so I guess the real mystery is how you found it, anyway. And to think I unknowingly helped you all those years ago." Mr. Campbell snapped out of his reverie and went over to hug Caera and Claudia. "Well," he concluded, "I suppose I had better go help your mother get ready for the movers." In three strides he crossed the room and left, closing the door behind him.

All that afternoon the girls stayed upstairs until the movers had gone. When all the noise died away, they made their way down the winding staircase to find their father moving the furniture to vacuum the floor beneath it. Ana left to be home in time for dinner, and Caera and Claudia went to wash up in the kitchen so their dad wouldn't be a nervous wreck when he saw all the dirty dishes that had accumulated over the week.

With things looking a little more like they had used to, the twins returned to the living room and turned on the t.v. When the doorbell rang, Caera got up to answer it, and was more that overjoyed to discover that someone had ordered pizza--one deep dish pan and one stuffed pizza at that. Mrs. Campbell emerged from the dining room area and paid, calling the girls over to discuss some plans she and Mr. Campbell had made.

The next morning, Caera and Claudia practically bounded out of their father's car. Ana met them in front of the school, and as they made their way inside, people everywhere looked shocked to see them back so soon. Getting their books out of their lockers in time for first period, the twins tried to rush to avoid too many probing questions from the small clot of people around them that looked like it was going to become a full--blown crowd. Emily pushed through, though, and came right up to them.

"Wow, guys, I just wanted to say that I'm really excited for you." Yeah, well, spare it Emily, because you're not fooling anyone, Caera thought to herself, but didn't have the chance to verbalize it before suddenly Jessica Ford appeared from somewhere out of Caera's vision and presented the twins with two invitations to her party.

"I really hope you can come. Everyone's going to be there. My Dad's heating the pool and everything, and we're going to have great music and good food, so call me if you can make it."

"Okay, we'll see." Claudia hedged. At that point the five minute bell rang, and people started heading for their classes. In first period, the announcement was made that the entire seventh grade class was to have the opportunity to go on the class French trip that had been scheduled for the summer, and not only that, it was going to be paid for by the school. Chaos reigned for a moment, as those who hadn't been considering going began to re-evaluate their plans.

Mr. Jenson's bright voice reminded them in cheery tones over the loudspeaker that it was to last three weeks, and that anyone who wanted to go should get their parents to sign the permission slips and bring them back to their first period teachers by no later than April 30.

A change of plans had been made, however, since the trip was now to be extended to all the seventh graders, and not just the French class. The school would charter a plane, and follow a course from Great Britain to Spain, France, Germany, and Italy, and accomodations were to be pre-booked in youth hostels, when other arrangements had not already been made. In Scotland, they had been offered to stay in a castle, and in France, Francois' home in the Loire River Valley. Everything but pocket money and money for souvenirs was to be provided.

Caera fidgeted in her seat for a minute, expecting all eyes to fall on her but was relieved when whooping noises erupted, and friends turned around in their seats to gossip amongst themselves. In short order, the room became an uproar of laughter and excitement, until the efforts of the teacher quietened everyone down by passing out the forms. For a minute at least, all was quiet as everyone read the terms of the trip.

At lunch that day, Ana put down her tray of steak fingers and mashed potatoes on the table and seated herself next to Claudia, who was just biting into her tunafish salad sandwich.

"So, did anyone suspect?" Ana asked and turned expectant eyes on her friend.

"Not yet," Claudia answered between bites. "I think everyone is still too excited to think, but I don't doubt that if it doesn't dawn on them soon, they'll read as much in Marie's next edition."

"You're probably right." Ana unwrapped her straw and poked at her orange juice container. "So, how have people been treating you guys lately?" Claudia looked around the cafeteria at the seventh grade, which was busily chattering away.

"So far only Emily has sucked up to us. Everyone else has been pretty much the same or just hasn't talked to us. Well, actually, now that I think about it, George Stuart passed me in P.E. a dozen or so times today, and every time erupted into a fit of sneezing. Can you believe Coach Poleman thought he was sick and made him go home? And Ellison Davis can't stop smiling at me, and Amy Porter wants to ask me a million questions about the police and the feds. It's kinda funny, you know." At that moment, Claudia and Ana heard a familiar voice and looked up. At the other end of the cafeteria, Caera was walking between Alex and Andrew and appeared to be heading towards their table.

"Hey, guys," Caera announced with a beam, "look who I ran into." Caera sat down and opened up her lunchbag to inspect its contents, but might as well have just looked over to see what her sister was eating. The Davenports swung their legs through between the table and bench and did the same, and Alex traded Ana her chocolate cake for four fudge covered oreos.

"So are you guys coming on Saturday?" Andrew asked in the chomping silence which ensued.

"Um-hmmn." Claudia answered with her mouth full.

"Great. This'll be a treat for you guys. You'll get to see a real pro in action."

"Ana choked on her orange juice. "You, a real pro? Why does that seem so hard to believe?"

"It's true," Alex boasted, sparing the cake he was about to take a bite of. "He can skate backward, and really, really, fast."

"Well, we'll see," she conceded. "Is Todd coming?"

"Yeah, where is he anyway?" Caera scanned the cafeteria.

"They're having food day in Spanish class, but he's coming skating with us on Saturday."

"Food day! When are we having that in French, Claudia?" Caera whined. Claudia shrugged her shoulders and continued eating, so Caera turned to Alex and Andrew. "Well, did you guys figure it out about the school trip yet? Good idea, huh?"

"My parents'll think so," Andrew smiled. "And maybe I'll get more to spend now on souvenirs. But there's one problem." Everyone looked up from the table.

"What's that?" They asked in unison. Andrew laughed.

"Francois Rochard."

"Oh, no, not him again," Alex put his hand on his head and groaned.

In the background, in the direction of the junk food line, Claudia heard suppressed squeals and a sound of paper ripping, telltale signs of Marie's proximity. Yup, things were pretty much getting back to normal, she told herself.

That night Claudia went to bed early and slept peacefully. At the chime of the grandfather clock at midnight, she began to drift through a familiar fog, past the lighthouse but indifferent to its noisy cries. On the sea cliffs her feet found the earth, and the wind blew fiercely around her as she gazed at the great waves far below.

As her thought shifted, her dream obliged her and carried her towards her home. There it was beneath her in sonorous repose, nestled between patches of woodlands on a blanket of turf. But as she looked at it, she realized it was not her home anymore and bent her head to the sky.

Claudia awoke and knuckled her eyes, feeling refreshed after a good night's sleep. She remembered a fragment of her last dream, in which she, Caera, Ana, Todd, and the Davenports were having fun in Europe, and laughed at some of the things she had imagined Emily and Marie doing.

Like most dreams, it was fading now, and though she wanted to savor it a little longer, she couldn't keep the details from slipping away into reality. So with a yawn, she got up to get ready for school, thinking of the plans they'd make.

