“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“I know the difference between fantasy and reality. But you didn’t see what happened at the library, and you weren’t there this afternoon when they tried to kidnap me. And what about my mom?”
“She’s on a business trip! Why would your dad lie about that? This other stuff they’re feeding you is just make-believe.”
“It’s not make-believe, Maggie. There’s something going on here and these guys know what it is. If you want to go, go. I won’t stop you.”
“Hey! Hurry up,” Fiona called out. She and the others had just passed through the gate into the backyard.
Eric looked at Maggie. “I’m staying.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay, too. But only to prove to you how crazy this is.”
“Fine.”
As soon as they joined the others, Fiona shut the gate.
“This way,” Uncle Carl said.
He led them along the back of the house and over to a set of concrete steps that descended to a basement door.
Uncle Carl knelt down and pointed at a small black dot on the top of the retaining wall that kept the backyard from falling into the stairs. “I didn’t notice until too late.”
Mr. Trouble hunched over next to him to see what he was talking about. After a moment, he patted Uncle Carl on the back. “Could have happened to any of us.”
“What is it?” Eric asked Keira.
“A Maker motion sensor,” she said. “If there’s one, there’s more. It means they’ll already know we’ve been here.”
Mr. Trouble stood back up. “And that means they won’t be coming back.”
“So they’re gone?” Eric asked, suddenly hopeful. “They’ve left town? They won’t be bothering me any more? What about my mom? Will she be coming back now?”
Mr. Trouble stepped over and put a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear. What I meant is that they won’t be coming back here, to this house. So waiting for them to return would be a waste of time.”
“Oh,” Eric said, disappointed. For a moment there he’d thought it was all over, that everything would go back to normal.
Mr. Trouble must have sensed this because he smiled and said, “Don’t worry. We haven’t lost a client, or a parent, yet.” He turned back to Uncle Carl. “You could have told us about the motion sensors in the car.”
Uncle Carl struggled back to his feet. “Of course I could have. But that’s not really what I wanted to show you.” He headed down the stairs then looked back at everyone. “Well, come on. We don’t have all day.”
Keira went first, then Fiona.
“You go ahead,” Mr. Trouble said to Maggie.
She looked at him suspiciously but followed the girls anyway.
Eric didn’t move. Going down the stairs was something he’d hoped to avoid. He knew he was being dumb, but basements had always given him the creeps. All those horror movies couldn’t be wrong, could they?
Mr. Trouble tapped Eric on the shoulder. “You first or me?”
Eric took a breath. “I’ll go.”
He headed down and could hear Mr. Trouble right behind him. By the time they reached the bottom, the others had all gone inside. How Uncle Carl had gotten the door open, Eric had no idea. It certainly didn’t look like he’d used any force.
The basement at Eric’s house was only half finished and used mostly for storage. The one at his grandparents’ farm was dark and cold and smelled like dirt. This one, though, was not like either of them.
If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought he’d just walked through the front door upstairs. There was a couch and chairs and tables. On one wall was a large television, and on the others, photographs and paintings were arranged in a way Eric thought his mother would have liked.
“Over here,” Uncle Carl called out.
He was standing next to a set of stairs. Once he was sure everyone was heading his way, he went up.
Eric had to admit this house was pretty nice. The lights and the carpets and the pictures and the furniture all had that expensive look that made him afraid to touch anything. Even the handrail on the staircase felt rich.
The door at the top led to a wide hallway with high ceilings and more pictures on the walls.
“Uncle Carl?” Fiona shouted.
He was nowhere in sight.
“Uncle Carl?” she repeated.
His head poked out from a doorway halfway down the hall. “Over here,” he said and disappeared back inside.
The room turned out to be a bedroom with a large black dresser and an even larger matching black bed. Uncle Carl was on his knees on the other side of the bed, with only the back of his head and his shoulders visible. The others moved around to join him.
“Look, look,” he said.
Mr. Trouble was the first to stop in his tracks. A second later, his sisters did the same.
“Is that a…?” Fiona trailed off.
No one spoke for several seconds.
“What’s the big deal?” Maggie whispered to Eric.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Set against the wall in front of Uncle Carl was what looked like a miniature set of drawers. It was maybe a foot across by a foot tall and perhaps four inches wide. Along the front were nine identically sized drawers, like a game board for tic-tac-toe. The frame of the box was painted dull yellow, while the drawers alternated between neon pink and bright lime green. There were black characters, like letters, on each, but nothing Eric recognized. Perhaps strangest of all, the box seemed to be attached to the wall by a layer of some kind of white paste.
Eric glanced around at the Trouble family. They were all still staring at the object.
“It’s just a box,” he said.
Without looking away, Mr. Trouble said, “It’s not just a box. It’s a Maker’s box.”
Eric looked at it again. “What’s it for?”
Mr. Trouble finally broke out of whatever trance he’d been in and knelt down next to his uncle. “That’s a good question. We’ve found signs of them on almost every job. The wax they use to hold them in place leaves a nice square impression, always the same size. But we’ve only found two other actual boxes. One in 1895 outside New Orleans, and one in 1957 in Memphis. But so far we haven’t been able to figure out their purpose.”
“Eighteen ninety-five?” Maggie said, obviously not believing it.
Mr. Trouble looked back at her and smiled. “Great-times-three granddad Robert. He wasn’t Mr. Trouble for long but he sure achieved a lot in his limited run.”
“What’s in the drawers?” Eric asked.
Mr. Trouble shrugged. “The others were empty so my guess is nothing.” He glanced at his uncle. “Have you checked?”
Uncle Carl shook his head. “Not yet.” He looked like he really wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“No time like the present,” Mr. Trouble said, reaching for the top left drawer.
Both Fiona and Keira sucked in deep breaths. But before Mr. Trouble touched the drawer’s knob, Uncle Carl grabbed his hand.
“We should wait until we have it in the workshop,” he said. “Just in case there is something in one of the drawers. That way, we’ll be in a position to contain it and analyze it right away.”
It was apparent Mr. Trouble didn’t want to wait, but he nodded and pulled his hand back, leaving the drawer unopened.
The second he was out of the way, Uncle Carl lifted the flap of his jacket. On the inside there were over a dozen different pockets. He unzipped one and removed a long black-handled tool. Attached to the handle was a thin piece of metal about half an inch wide and six inches long. He pushed a red button on the base then held his free hand near the metal strip, waiting.
As soon as the metal started giving off a slight glow, he pulled his hand away then slid the metal end into the wax, melting it. Working quickly, he cut a line along the top of the box and down both sides — there was no wax along the bottom. Once finished, he pulled his wax cutter out and hit the button again. The glow began to fade right away.