Chase Tinker & The House of Magic (22 page)

Chase scrunched his eyebrows together. "Why'd
you have to go and say that? Now you got me even more stressed
out."

"Sorry," said Andy, shrugging. "Just saying.
So maybe you need to concentrate on it more."

"I've been trying," said Chase. "But the last
thing I remember dreaming about was Aunt Augusta teaching me how to
knit flower eye-patches and yelling, 'Yes, you do know how to ride
a flying walrus!' "

"That's weird," said Andy, snickering. "But
I'm pretty sure it won't come true." He climbed into bed and
without another word, fell fast asleep…

The kids were playing hide-and-seek, and Andy
was looking for the perfect place to hide. Usually, he would think
it was a baby game, but in this house, he'd let it slide. Tearing
down a hallway, he darted into the Hall of Portraits. Skidding to a
halt, he turned slowly, gazing at the pictures of his many
ancestors. It felt eerily as if they were all staring at him, their
eyes following his every move. Aunt Augusta glared down at him with
her one good eye.

Deciding that maybe he didn't want to hide in
there anymore, he turned to run back down the hall and tripped on
the carpet runner. He fell toward a huge portrait of an unsmiling
man and woman seated on a wrought-iron bench. He reached out to
brace himself, but instead of crashing into the picture, he toppled
into a garden thick with flowers and plants.

His eyes wide, Andy gazed at his
surroundings. He was part of the painting now, but the Hall of
Portraits on the other side of the frame was still visible. Jumping
to his feet, he went to brush the dirt and leaves from his shorts
when he saw he no longer had on his regular clothes. He now wore
old-fashioned, dark-blue knickers and a white and blue checkered
sweater.

"Weird," he muttered to himself.

"Charles?" said a woman's voice.

"Aye, Beatrice?" answered Charles in a bored
voice.

Andy swung around. The people in the painting
were talking! And, they had strong accents, which made Andy
remember the earlier Tinkers were from Scotland.

"I believe we have a visitor."

"Splendid! I do love visitors," said Charles.
"It gets a wee bit borin' sittin' here stiffly, day after day, year
after year."

"Young lad, what brings ye to our lovely
portrait on this fine day?" asked Beatrice, beckoning to Andy with
her long elegant fingers.

He sidled through the flowers to stand in
front of the couple. They both had short, dark hair and were
dressed in clothing from the 1920's; the woman wore an orange,
knee-length dress with a fringe around the bottom and the man was
dressed in a dark suit with a fedora hat pulled low over his
dark-brown eyes.

"I—I'm not sure," he answered. "Who
are
you?"

"I'm Beatrice Tinker and this gentleman here
is my twin brother, Charles. Are ye a Tinker as well?"

"Yeah," Andy said, studying them
thoughtfully. "Your powers don't happen to be time-travel, do
they?"

"Alas, Beatrice, tis not a social call," said
Charles. "He wants us to share our secrets for travelin' through
time. A very tricky business, I must say."

"I didn't mean to bother you," said Andy
politely. "I accidentally fell through your picture and into your
garden."

"Naw. We don't mind," remarked Charles,
flicking a leaf from his trouser leg. "It's happened to others
before ye."

"Though, ye do wish us to tell ye how to
journey through past and future time," said Beatrice shrewdly,
narrowing her eyes at him.

"If you wouldn't mind," said Andy. "It's very
important. We have to save the world from evil!"

"Aye. That is truly a fine reason," said
Charles, glancing at his sister. "What say ye Beatrice?"

She shook her head, sadness in her eyes. "I
don't know that we should help ye. Ye see, it's always the same,
everyone believin' their cause is the most important; that their
mission will make the world a finer place."

"But it will!" exclaimed Andy. "Those rotten
Dark Enemy guys want to control all the magic in the world and take
away our free will. We can't let that happen! Please, you have to
help us." Andy clasped his hands in front of his chest.
"Please?"

She looked deeply into Andy's pleading eyes
before saying, "Do ye promise to do what ye need to do there and
nothin' else? To return as soon as ye are finished and to cause no
harm?"

Andy bobbed his head vigorously.

"This is of the utmost importance! Make no
exceptions!" Beatrice closed her eyes and sighed as a breeze
whispered through the trees and swirled around them. "The secret
words are
Peragro Vetustas,
which mean travel through past
or future time. Say the words and the time and place to where ye
wish to travel. After ye finish, it will begin. Ye'll stay still,
while the world and time fly past.

"To return, repeat the words and say the time
and place to where ye wish to return. When ye travel, the magic
will go with ye. Yer garments will become those of the time ye are
in and yer words will become the language of the time, but yer
thoughts will be yer own." She opened her eyes. They now blazed
with a piercing bluish-white light. "REMEMBER, CHANGIN' TIME CAN
LEAD TO VERY SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES!"

With a blinding flash, he was thrown from the
painting and landed with a painful thud on his backside on his
bedroom floor.

Andy stared at the ceiling, his legs wrapped
in the blankets trailing on the floor. He blinked several times to
clear his fuzzy brain. "Holy-moly! Did that really happen?" he
whispered to himself. "It sure feels like it." He gulped. "Wow! I
had a real live premonition dream!"

Scrambling to his feet, he leaped onto
Chase's bed. "Chase! Wake up!"

"Go away, I'm sleeping," mumbled Chase as he
burrowed deeper into his pillow. "Tell Mom I'll see her in the
morning."

"No!" yelled Andy, shaking him. "Mom's not
here. I had the premonition."

"What are you talking about?" asked Chase,
his drowsiness disappearing.

"We were playing hide-and-seek—"

"Yeah, right," Chase broke in. "Since when do
I play that little kids' game?" He pulled the covers over his head.
"Go back to bed. Maybe you can dream you're playing a wild game of
pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey."

Andy bounced off the bed. "Okay, fine. I
won't tell you I met Charles and Beatrice Tinker and that they told
me the secret words and what happens when you time-travel."

Chase flung back his blankets, his eyes
lighting up. "You really had the premonition?"

"Yeah," said Andy, grinning. "It was pretty
cool, and a little scary too. It felt like I was in the painting
with them."

"So? Tell me!"

It didn't take long for the story to pour
out. "It was nothing like my other dreams," said Andy. "But I don't
understand. Why do you suppose I had the premonition this
time?"

"Who knows?" said Chase. "Why did I have them
in the first place and not you? I'm just happy we have the clues we
need to go for it. And it's good we don't have to find
costumes."

"And we don't have to worry about talking to
people in their language," added Andy. "Beatrice said the magic
will do it for us."

Chase lounged back on his bed. "Pregro
Vest—wait, what did you say it was?"

"
Peragro Vetustas,
" said Andy, rolling
his eyes. "We can't forget."

"Oh, yeah.
Peragro Vetustas.
" Chase
repeated it to himself several times. They were going to travel
back in time. The idea made shivers run up and down his spine. He
wished he'd paid more attention in history class. "I wonder if
Grandfather ever tried it," he murmured.

"It's not something anyone should mess with
too much," said Andy. "Beatrice sounded mad when she told me
changing time can lead to 'very serious consequences'." His voice
deepened as he said the last three words.

"But we're going back to fix something
important," said Chase, looking irritated. "Those evil creeps need
to be stopped."

Andy scrunched his face into a worried frown.
"What if we
can't
stop them?"

"H
i-yah! Take that,
you Dark Enemy! Hi-yah! And that! And that!" yelled Andy, kicking
and swinging his arms at his invisible attackers in what he thought
were cool ninja moves.

"Come on, Andy," said Chase, who was already
halfway down the stairs. "Janie and Persephone are probably
wondering where the heck we are. And we're not supposed to know
about the Dark Enemy, remember? So stop yelling about it."

"Oops, I forgot," whispered Andy, jogging
down the stairs after one last kick. "Sorry."

A few minutes later, they bumped into Janie
and Persephone in the hallway outside Grandfather's study.

"There you are," said Janie. "We're playing
hide-and-seek with Maxwell. I'm hoping he'll lead us to where he
hid my cell phone."

"Hide-and-seek?" said Chase. "Funny you
should mention that."

"Why?" she asked. "Did you want to join
in?"

"Sure, let's go. Andy wants to hide in the
Hall of Portraits. Don't you, shrimp?"

The boys grinned at each other.

"What's up with you two?" asked
Persephone.

"Did you have your premonition?" asked Janie,
her face lighting up.

"Andy did."

"It happened in the Hall of Portraits!"
exclaimed Andy. "Let's go check it out."

When they reached the long hallway that was
crammed portraits, Andy hurried to the huge picture from his
premonition. "Here they are," he said. "Beatrice and Charles
Tinker."

"These are the time-travelers, huh?" said
Janie, wrinkling her nose. "Classy. She looks like a flapper and he
looks like a gangster."

"I liked them," said Andy, as he stared at
the twins, frozen in time in their portrait. "Do I need to go into
the painting again?"

"I dunno," said Chase, shrugging. "Your
future-self found out what we needed to know, so I wouldn't think
you would have to go again, or at all, because, if you think about
it, you haven't been yet. Man! Is this confusing or what?"

"Why don't you tell Janie and me what you
found out?" said Persephone.

Andy quickly retold his premonition story
with Chase nodding and adding his own two-cents worth every now and
then.

"Oh, my gosh! This is insane!" cried Janie
dramatically. She flopped back onto the floor. "We're traveling
back in time. My nerves can barely handle it."

"I know!" said Persephone. "This is too wild
for words."

Janie jerked back up. "Okay, this is what we
have to do. We already have the information on what time and day to
go back to. And thank goodness we don't have to worry about what to
wear or how to talk with the locals. So Grandfather, my mom or
Persephone's mom don't know we're gone, we need to remember the
exact time we go and come back at that time. It'll be a split
second thing. Bam! We're there. Bam! We're here. Even if we're gone
for months and months—"

"What! Months and months?" said Andy,
frowning at her.

"It's only an example," said Janie, with a
nonchalant swish of her hand. "I hope it'll be done quicker than
you can spit."

"That's good," grumbled Andy. " 'Cause I can
spit pretty fast."

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath and
smiling. "When do we go?"

"What about now?" said Chase. "There's no
time like the present."

"Yeah, because it's not as confusing as
dealing with the past or the future," retorted Janie.

Five minutes later, the four kids peeked into
the Time-Travel Room. Luckily, the
cuddleupus
was napping
again.

"Here's the plan," said Chase quietly,
glancing at his watch. "It's 11:33. We'll sneak in and hold hands
while Janie says the magic words and the other stuff. We'll put
Andy closest to the plant. If it wakes up, he can give it a big
kiss."

"I'm not kissing that thing!"

"You know what I mean," said Chase, grinning
at his glowering brother. "Pretend you care. Come on, let's
go."

They crept into the room, slid against the
wall and huddled in the farthest corner.

"You better hurry before I chicken out,"
whispered Persephone. "My heart must be pounding five hundred miles
a minute, and I'm pretty close to puking."

Chase nodded, his own heart thumping like
mad. They were taking a tremendous risk, but when they saved the
Relic, it would sure be worth it.

"Ah! It's awake! Hurry up!" yelled Andy as
one of the
cuddleupus's
long tendrils reached across the
room and tickled his ear.

"
Peragro Vetustas,
" Janie murmured.
She closed her eyes and said the time and place where they wanted
to go.

Persephone's and Andy's hands tightened in
Chase's as the room started to spin around them. Something brown
streaked past and he thought he heard Janie yell, "Maxwell!"

Things spun backward at a rapid pace just as
Charles and Beatrice had said they would. Time and the world flew
by in a dizzying blur of buildings, landscape and the constant
passing of night and day. It was as if they were in the eye of a
tornado. Chase clamped his eyes shut.

With a sharp jolt, the sensations ended.
Chase opened first one eye, then the other. Feeling queasy, he
blinked and peered around curiously, noticing the other kids doing
the same thing. Andy was groping his neck and looking relieved a
plant wasn't attached to it.

Chase glanced down. His shorts and t-shirt
were gone. He was now clad in rough, brown trousers tucked into
black leather boots, a tan shirt with string ties at the collar and
cuffs, and a black belt. He reached up and touched the hat perched
on his head; a beret of some sort. Andy was dressed the same, but
the girls wore long dresses that came up a few inches past their
ankles, and had square necklines and long sleeves that split at the
wrists.