It was here that my father motioned me to rise and speak, and I lied to protect the animals. 'According to two convicts I watched and listened to in the underground chamber, there is a traitor living among us," I said. "This man is their leader and goes by the secret name Sebastian, thus the letter S. "

A burst of gasps again filled the room, not the least of which was from Ganesh, as he looked at me with horror on his face.

"You've gone too far now, Daley. Stop with this nonsense!" he shouted.

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"Really, you two, this is too much," said Grayson. There was a mixture of mumbling around the room, and then a voice was heard that no one expected.

"I personally helped escort the convicts to Ainsworth."

It was Pervis, his head down, facing the floor.

He looked up then, and surveyed the room from side to side. "Only thing is, Warvold stayed in Ainsworth for , several days after my guards and I returned to Bridewell. 1 It could be that he bought their freedom, or otherwise persuaded Ainsworth to set them free outside. He was a peculiar man and he often made secret, unusual decisions with implications only he understood. Don't think for a minute that he didn't expect things to unravel as they have. We may yet see his wisdom in all this before we're through." He sc.r.a.ped his chains across the table, turned, and gestured toward the window. "In any event, we've known for a long time that creatures move around in The Dark Hills. My guards and I see them all the time. Maybe now we know what they are."

"Oh, come on, Pervis, this is simply ridiculous!" Nicolas exploded. "Are you telling me you believe the fantasies of a child?"

For the first time since I had entered the meeting room, I felt conviction and courage and even some anger. So much at stake, and such closed minds. It would take something more concrete to get this group to believe. I pushed my chair out and walked to the window. I stood for a moment with my back to the group and observed 201.

the sickening stone wall. It looked almost alive with its green ivy veins shooting in all directions. When I turned around to address the men, I had a new pa.s.sion in my eyes.

"I have more to tell."

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CHAPTER 21.

THE DARK HILLS DIVIDE.

All my hesitation was gone. The people sitting at the tables, the things I knew were true about the convicts, the meeting room itself none of it scared me any longer. Years behind the wall had blinded these men to the world outside. But the wall had taken more than their freedom to experience the outer world. I could see that it had stolen their ability to figure out the truth.

I unfolded the paper Murphy had left for me on the windowsill.

"When I ventured outside the wall I met a remarkable man. This man has lived in the mountains for many years, and he has extraordinary abilities with animals. He has been watching the convicts, and he gave me this note."

"Did this man tell you his name?" asked Grayson. I nodded and told him the man's name was Yipes. He questioned me again, this time about the man's size, and I told him he was the smallest man I'd ever seen. Grayson turned a ghostly white and looked at me with a blank stare. Then he put his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands.

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"What is it, Grayson?" Ganesh asked. Grayson looked up, scanned the faces in the room, and answered.

"I think she might be telling the truth," he said. Everyone was looking at him now, trying to figure out what he was talking about.

"Yipes is no legend," he continued. "He's real. He's a very small man, more than likely able to communicate with animals, and he lives in the wild." Grayson continued his stammering and began shaking his head. He stood up and looked around as though he was trying to recall a distant memory and remember it properly before speaking.

"When he was a boy he lived in Bridewell for a time. He arrived from Ainsworth, and wandered the streets until he was hungry enough to steal bread." Grayson stopped and looked directly at me, then continued. "He stole that bread from me, and I caught him. After that, I let him stay in the library and sleep on the chair in the corner. He was so small, n.o.body ever took notice of him. When people came in, he hid in the shadows. I brought him sc.r.a.ps from the kitchen and read him books." Grayson walked to the window, drawing out the memory, gazing at the ever-present stone and vine of the wall.

"One day I rounded the corner to the chair and found him sitting in Warvold's lap. I was shocked, afraid old Warvold would get rid of both the boy and me. But I could not have been more wrong. Warvold loved the boy. He would sit and read to him and they would talk of 204.

things I heard only in whispers, of talking animals, of things in the wild outside the wall, of secret pa.s.sages and mysteries of the distant past only Warvold understood. I thought it was all rubbish."

He turned and faced the room, leaning against the windowsill, his body outlined against the morning light. "I went about my business, cared for the boy, and taught him what I knew. Warvold was a busy man in those days, and often he would be absent for weeks on end before returning. Yipes was remarkably agile and strong for his size. He would stack books on the top shelves when no one was about. He could scale a tall bookshelf in an instant, hang by one hand, and stack volume after volume perfectly.

"I don't know how old he was when he arrived, nor have I any idea what his age was when he disappeared a year later. I only know that he told me he would find a way outside, and that when he did, he would live in the wild with animals and learn to communicate with them. Warvold told him so, and he believed. He was treated badly by humans, forgotten, discarded. In the wild, he believed things would be different."

Grayson was visibly moved by his own recollections. He seemed overcome by the idea that this boy he once cared for was still alive, living out his days in the mountains and the forest.

"One day I came into the library and Warvold was sitting in the chair sobbing, holding a strange silver key 205.

between his fingers. 'He's gone,' he said, 'never to return.' I guess Warvold was right, because I have not seen Yipes since."

The room was quiet. I felt it was my best chance to reveal what little else I knew, to convince them that trouble was indeed on the way. So I read the note from Yipes I had sent Murphy to get. And in the reading, I felt a chill in my bones.

"The Dark Hills divide cannot protect you from an evil that lurks within. At twelve o'clock this very night he will signal them, and they will come for you. Your only hope is to tear down what you have built.'

"It's signed by Yipes," I said. After that, there was a look on the faces in the room I had never seen before in all my visits to Bridewell.

Suspicion.

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CHAPTER 22.

SECRET PLAN.

After I read the note from Yipes, the meeting room was quiet for a long time. It was as if n.o.body knew what to say or do next, or even how to act. My father was the one to finally break the silence.

"It seems we are all having trouble coming to grips with the situation at hand. Unless anyone objects, I suggest we let Alexa tell us everything else she knows. If what she has already explained to us is true, and it appears that it is, then we have almost no time to prepare for a possible invasion." Pervis shifted in his chair and started the chains jingling between his legs. I was glad to have him in our midst.

I rose and advanced to the far end of the room where a large wooden table surrounded by chairs was kept. My father unhitched Pervis and escorted him to a chair at the new table, then locked him to one of the legs. I invited everyone else to join us and sit down, and I unrolled the map onto the middle of the table. I used heavy bra.s.s candlesticks to keep the map flat against the wood.

"We haven't got a lot of time and we lack proper defenses," Father said. "Most of those who normally reside in Bridewell are conducting business in other parts of the kingdom, which is both good and bad. Fewer people are 207.

at risk, but it puts us drastically short of men. No doubt this is precisely why the convicts have chosen to attack now."

Father looked across the table at Pervis and said, "We have the six of us. How many guards do we have?"

"We have fourteen, fifteen if you take these shackles off of me, plus sixty or so men, women, and children scattered around town," said Pervis.

"Fourteen guards?" asked Silas, a.s.suming we would not be letting Pervis go. "There could be hundreds of convicts out in those hills. There's no way we could handle them all, especially since we don't know how or when exactly they will strike. And worse, one of them is inside the wall. It could be anyone. Even one of us."

Silas had voiced what all of us were thinking but were afraid to say: What if Sebastian was someone in this very room?

"I refuse to believe that," Father said. "The only one of us who hasn't been in this group for years and years is you, and you don't strike me as an evil mastermind. Besides, whoever this Sebastian is, if he is at all, he would have to keep a low profile to last this long in Bridewell. I suggest we not worry so much about the spy and stay focused on the invasion, which is coming whether a spy exists or not."

What Father was saying resonated with the group. "My hunch is we've already locked up Sebastian anyway," added Nicolas, with a weary eye toward Pervis.

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The implication bothered me, and Nicolas had caught me at a time when I was ready to stand up for Pervis when no one else was. This was the opportunity I was looking for to try to get him out of his shackles.

"I don't think pointing fingers at Pervis will solve anything," I protested. "We have no evidence to suggest that he is Sebastian. In fact, he is probably the last person among us who we should distrust. He's the only one who was working directly with Warvold before the convicts even arrived in Bridewell. Besides, we have a much better chance of success if he is free to lead our few trained guards in a battle plan."

"She's right," said Grayson. "I've been in Bridewell longer than he has, but when I started working in the library, Pervis was already a part of Warvold's inner circle."

Within a few minutes the group agreed that it was exceedingly unrealistic to think Pervis could be Sebastian. It was further agreed that he was indeed worth more to the cause as a free man than as one imprisoned. The group agreed on a simplified charge against him, drunken and disorderly conduct, and he was released with a stern warning to behave himself.

"Glad to have you back," I said as Pervis rubbed his wrists where the harsh metal of the shackles had worn his skin raw.

"Happy to be back at work. I hate holidays," he replied.

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We were ready to review the map and begin forming a plan, and I leaned over the table so I could better see the details in the natural light pouring in from outside.

"If you look at the map, you'll see that the brown- colored lines represent the aboveground paths," I said. "The black lines represent the ones belowground. A number of black lines run below Bridewell, but only one seems to have any strategic significance. That one there." I placed my finger on a black line out in The Dark Hills and ran my finger along the map, winding my way toward the center until the line ended. "I believe this spot represents the courtyard in the center of town and the convicts have continued digging until this tunnel ends a few feet beneath the cobblestones. When the time is right for them to strike, I think they will break through the cobblestone and pour into Bridewell like so many rats out of a sewer."

Nicolas took his turn at leaning over the map and tried to calculate the distance and direction of the line I was pointing to. "I do believe she's right on that one," he said. "That does look like the center of town. You see the lodge is here with the adjoining wall along its side. Either Alexa is right, or it's somewhere close to the courtyard." He looked up and smiled at me, and my anger over his accusation of Pervis subsided considerably.

"There's more," I continued. "As long as we move quickly and secure the city so that no potential spies are allowed out, the convicts have no way of knowing that 210.

we've discovered their plan. I believe Sebastian and the convicts communicate using a hawk to carry messages back and forth. It gets complicated with the animals, but Yipes has a hawk of his own."

I went on to explain that during the past few hours, Yipes's hawk had been flying over The Dark Hills, looking for signs of a place where the convicts might rendezvous with their own hawk to send and receive messages.

"My hope is that by now the hawk the criminals and Sebastian were using to communicate has been apprehended. If Sebastian does try to correspond further, his hawk will be difficult to find, since Yipes' should have it caged up in the mountains by now."

A look around the room revealed wide eyes and drooping jaws. It was nice for now that they had no knowledge of the army of animals who were responsible for most of the progress I had made.

"Our best chance is to allow the convicts to continue with their plans to attack the city and to allow for this attack to take place at night. If Yipes is right, and our location guess is correct, the convicts will attack at the center of town at midnight tonight."

"But that's not enough time to mount a plan against them, Alexa," my father said. "We should contact Yipes and see if the attack can be thwarted from the outside."

"No, I disagree," Pervis argued. "Right now we have the element of surprise working against them. It may be 211.

our only chance to catch them off guard. What we need is a plan, and I think I'm onto something that will work." Pervis looked at the map thoughtfully, then asked for the note from Yipes and re-read part of it aloud. " ' Your only hope is to tear down what you have built.' I can't get that out of my mind, and I think I know what he means for us to do."

The next hour was spent planning our strategy and working out everything that could go wrong. Everyone agreed it was a brilliant plan, but there was a great deal of anxiety about whether it could be done in time. It was noon when we finished our planning, leaving us about twelve hours until the invasion was expected to begin.

A town meeting was held in the main hall of Renny Lodge, and everyone in Bridewell was put to work on projects relating to the scheduled a.s.sault. We had eighty people, including the guards. All four of the gates into Bridewell were locked and heavily guarded, and the library door would be kept locked to prevent the tunnel from being used. If a spy did live among us, it was essential to our plan that his ability to communicate with the convicts and move about freely be eliminated.

The town was in a fever of activity by the time night arrived. Everyone was engaged in the effort. I became so tired after darkness enveloped the town that I fell fast asleep sitting up against a wall. Father wanted to carry me to my room and put me into my bed, but I refused.

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"How are you doing?" I asked in a sleepy voice.

"All things considered, not bad. It's a lot to process so quickly."

"I know what you mean," I said. "How are the preparations coming along?"

"Just fine. It will be close, but I think we'll make it."

He turned to leave, then turned back as if to say something more. Instead he just looked at me, and I saw that his thick hair had swished into the shape of a C against his forehead. He brushed it away with his brawny left hand and walked off as I drifted back to sleep against the wall.

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CHAPTER 23.

MYTHICAL CREATURE.

"Blast that Pervis! All the strawberry jam is gone. He must have snuck in here and finished it off last night."

It was only a few hours until midnight and I was in the kitchen, energized by the approaching invasion. Grayson was in a sour mood, and I was trying my best to cheer him up.

"Tell you what, Grayson. If things go well tonight, I'll get Silas to bring in a cart full of strawberries and you can eat jam all day long if you like."

The smell of fresh-baked breads and tangy slices of red and green apples filled the kitchen. While I stacked my plate with both, Grayson picked up a biscuit and contemplated its size and shape.

"My irritation is made complete by the perfection of biscuits just out of the oven," he said. "It would be sinful to eat them plain." He tossed the biscuit onto the table with disgust, sending sparks of crumbs flying in every direction.

I ate ravenously and drank milk in great gulps, my body still searching for fuel to fill some unknown reserve.

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When I looked up again from my plate, Grayson was inspecting something new he had pulled from his pocket.

"I believe this belongs to you, does it not?" he said, holding my pocketknife. "I a.s.sume you had a reason for leaving it where it was, so I pushed a bookshelf in front of the cat door before I removed it. The cats seem agitated and they whine and scratch at the door a lot. Any idea why that might be?"

I had completely forgotten about Sam and Pepper. I took a drink from my gla.s.s to buy some time and consider a good answer.