The Secret of the Key Read online

  Also by Marianne Malone

  1 · The Sixty-Eight Rooms

  2 · Stealing Magic

  3 · The Pirate’s Coin

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Marianne Malone

  Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2014 by Greg Call

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Photograph credits: © The Art Institute of Chicago. Mrs. James Ward Thorne, American, 1882–1966, E4: English Drawing Room of the Late Jacobean Period, 1680–1702, c. 1937, Miniature room, mixed media, Interior: 16 3/4 × 26 1/2 × 21 5/8 in., Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne, 1941.1189, The Art Institute of Chicago (this page); © ClassicStock/Alamy (this page); Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-DIG-matpc-23053] (this page)

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Malone, Marianne.

  The secret of the key : a Sixty-eight rooms adventure / Marianne Malone; illustrations by Greg Call.—First edition.

  pages cm.

  Sequel to: The pirate’s coin.

  Summary: In the Art Institute of Chicago’s miniature Thorne Rooms, the Thorne Rooms key and a mysterious set of rings lead Ruthie and Jack to new historical eras and a woman who went missing as a young girl. ISBN 978-0-307-97721-2 (trade)—ISBN 978-0-307-97722-9 (lib. bdg.)—ISBN 978-0-307-97723-6 (ebook)

  1. Art Institute of Chicago—Juvenile fiction. [1. Art Institute of Chicago—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. Miniature rooms—Fiction. 4. Size—Fiction. 5. Magic—Fiction.] I. Call, Greg, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.M29646Ke 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013028270

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS OF THE STATE STREETS,

  Urbana, Illinois, 1984–2003

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. The Ring Dial

  2. The Hourglass

  3. Freddy

  4. Not New Hampshire

  5. New York, New York

  6. The Wooden Box

  7. One Clue Closer

  8. The Other Way In

  9. The Governess

  10. Hints

  11. Telling Stories

  12. Slippery Stones

  13. A Reason to Lie

  14. A Sticky Spot

  15. Fugitives

  16. The Choice

  17. Montjoie

  18. Hope of Future Years

  19. The Spell

  Author’s Note

  Resources

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  A JOB—A REAL JOB! Ruthie Stewart repeated to herself. Heat radiated up from the sidewalk even though it was only ten-thirty in the morning, but she barely noticed.

  “Hey, slow down, kiddo,” her dad called. He was walking her to Mrs. McVittie’s Rare and Antique Bookshop. “Did you even hear a word I was saying?”

  She didn’t. Ruthie turned, waiting for her dad to catch up. It’s just that she had never had a job before, and now Mrs. McVittie had asked her and Jack to help out in the shop this summer. She could use extra hands for opening boxes, sorting, and dusting.

  At the start of every summer, Ruthie thought only of glorious days filled with nothing but free time ahead. Boredom? Impossible. But school had been out for a couple of weeks. Jack had signed up for Chinese lessons, and he had piano too. Her parents were busy teaching summer school, and her sister, Claire, would be going away on a summer-abroad program. Ruthie’s schedule was open until she went off to camp in August, and the reality of having nothing to do had begun creeping into her thoughts like an annoying fly in the room.

  Of course, what she really wanted to do with her time was explore the magical Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute, the sixty-eight miniature time portals that beckoned her with their promise of trips to past worlds. But she couldn’t spend every day in the museum, not without raising her parents’ suspicion.

  “What I was saying,” her dad repeated pointedly, “is that it’s supposed to reach over ninety degrees today. I want you and Jack to make sure Minerva keeps the AC on.”

  “We will, Dad,” she promised.

  They arrived at the shop, the Closed sign still in place. Ruthie pressed the doorbell.

  “Good morning,” Mrs. McVittie said when she let them in. “Jack’s already here—I’ve got him started in the back.”

  “Bye, Dad,” Ruthie said.

  Ruthie loved Mrs. McVittie’s shop. It was long and narrow, lined floor to ceiling with sagging shelves of old leather-bound books. Antiques were scattered here and there, along with silver pieces, like boxes and candlesticks, and more than a few small, framed oil paintings. And Mrs. McVittie was constantly adding and changing things, so it was always different. The smell of the shop was a distinctive mix of dust and leather, with all the scents the old things had picked up over their lifetimes, in some cases a century or more. Sometimes Ruthie marveled at the thought of where all these things had been.

  Ruthie headed to the storeroom at the far end of the shop. It was a windowless space except for a skylight high above, and was crammed with years’ worth of inventory collected from estate sales and auctions. Her best friend was nowhere to be seen.

  Deep in the room, down a narrow pathway formed between high piles of boxes and packing crates, she finally found him sitting cross-legged on the floor. There was an opened box next to him, and he was reading a yellowed newspaper.

  “Hi,” Jack said without looking up.

  “When did you get here?” Ruthie asked.

  “ ’Bout a half hour ago. Man, Watergate was really something.”

  “What?”

  “Watergate. The big scandal that made President Nixon resign.” Jack held up a crumpled but now smoothed-out old newspaper. “See? Nineteen seventy-four!”

  Ruthie read the headline, in bold two-inch-high letters: “Nixon Resigns.”

  “And look at this one from 1980.” Jack held up another that read, “Beatle John Lennon Slain.”

  “You’re reading old newspapers?” Ruthie asked.

  “All this stuff we’re supposed to unpack is wrapped in them. It’s pretty cool. I’m saving some.”

  Jack loved history. This was going to slow him down for sure, Ruthie thought.

  “Yeah, but what are we supposed to be doing with the stuff inside the newspapers?”

  “Oh, right,” Jack said, and looked up. “There’s a clipboard for you on the shelf over there. Mrs. McVittie wants us to write down a description of everything. There are directions on your clipboard.”

  “Okay. Sounds easy.”

  Ruthie retrieved the clipboard that Mrs. McVittie had set out for her and chose a box to start with. This one was filled with books. She carefully followed the directions, jotting down as much information as she could.

  They worked through the morning, and Mrs. McVittie came to check on their progress from time to time. At noon she ordered sandwiches from a local deli and they sat together i
n the front room.

  “Not too dull, I hope?” Mrs. McVittie asked them.

  “It’s better than doing nothing at home,” Ruthie said, munching a dill pickle.

  “I think it’s interesting—there’s so much to read about,” Jack added.

  After lunch they went back to work. Ruthie was amazed at how much was in the storeroom. She worked faster than Jack, it was true, but he kept them entertained with his running monologue about any article that piqued his interest. He read about current events, politics, robberies, and other crimes that had occurred in the city.

  As she unwrapped a plate, a rumpled newsprint image caught Ruthie’s eye. “This must have been great.”

  She held up a full-page ad from 1977 for an exhibition at the Field Museum called the Treasures of Tutankhamun. Surrounded by his impressive headdress, King Tut, the boy pharaoh of Egypt, stared out from the newspaper with his kohl-rimmed eyes.

  “Cool!” Jack responded. “I’ll save that one too.”

  As Jack looked at the page, Ruthie saw a headline on the other side: “Missing Teen Case Unsolved.” She skimmed the article about a girl named Becky Brown who had been babysitting her little brother and vanished without a trace. It gave Ruthie chills to think how that could happen to someone.

  “Ruthie,” Mrs. McVittie said, entering the room and walking over to a sturdy-looking container, “could I ask you to open this crate next? I’m looking for something that came from a particular estate sale.”

  “Sure.” Ruthie handed the newspaper with the King Tut ad to Jack. “What should I be on the lookout for?”

  “Anything eighteenth-century, preferably English. I have a client interested in things from the latter half of that century,” Mrs. McVittie answered, and went back into the shop, but not before looking askance at Jack’s sparsely filled-in clipboard.

  The crate Mrs. McVittie had asked Ruthie to unpack was mostly filled with household objects: some fragile-looking porcelain, a silver dish, a few delicately embroidered handkerchiefs, and a small wooden box, a cube of about eight inches. It was made of fine wood with hinges on one side and a keyhole on the other. Ruthie tried lifting the lid. Locked!

  She rummaged through the bottom of the crate, carefully sifting through the last crumpled newsprint packaging. Aha! She pulled out a key. It was made of brass and was obviously old, but not very ornate. She held it up for a few seconds to see how the light hit it. A beam of late-afternoon sunshine streamed in from the skylight at a sharp angle.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked.

  “Probably nothing. Just a key.”

  “Just a key?” Since finding the magic one belonging to the sixteenth-century duchess Christina of Milan, neither of them could look at keys in the same way. Especially not old ones! Could this one also have some kind of power?

  Jack came over to her and studied the key. “Do you know what it goes to?”

  “This, I think.” She pointed out the wooden box she had just removed from the crate.

  Ruthie tried the key in the keyhole. It fit. She turned it a half turn and they both heard the satisfying metal-on-wood sound of the lock unlatching. She gave Jack a quick grin before opening the box.

  Inside, the box was lined with worn crimson velvet. Nestled in the center was a metal object consisting of two flat disk-like rings, one within the other, and a crosspiece. Like the key, it was made of what looked like brass (yellow, but not as shiny as gold). Each ring had markings carved into it: London 51, Paris 48, and Rome 41. Ruthie lifted it out.

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s beautiful,” Ruthie said. “It reminds me of a Christmas tree ornament.”

  “Maybe Mrs. McVittie knows what it is.”

  They brought it out to the front room, where Mrs. McVittie was sitting at her desk, doing some paperwork. She looked over her reading glasses at them. “Ah. A universal equinoctial ring dial.”

  “A what?” Ruthie asked.

  “It’s an eighteenth-century ring dial. It was used to tell time. I believe I have a few back there.”

  “How does it work?” Jack asked, grabbing a caramel from the crystal dish that Mrs. McVittie always kept on her desk. He unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth.

  “It’s essentially a sundial, only portable,” Mrs. McVittie explained.

  “You mean like the things you see in gardens, where the sun casts a shadow that lines up with the hour?” Ruthie asked.

  “Yes. First you need to know the date.” She took the dial and slid a movable sleeve—which had a tiny hole in it—along the crosspiece. “These are the letters of the months etched here, with markings for the days.” She set it for today’s date. “Then the latitude.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Jack said.

  “Let’s see—Chicago is roughly latitude forty-one degrees north. The smaller ring is calibrated with hours etched into it.” She swiveled the rings into place, rose from her chair, and went to the window at the front of the shop. Holding the dial from a silk cord attached to the top of the outer ring, she let the sun shine on it.

  The three watched for a moment as the ring dial swayed and twirled. Finally a beam of sunlight pierced through the tiny hole, hitting the hour ring.

  “Half past three,” Mrs. McVittie declared.

  Jack checked his watch. “That’s right!”

  “These were used by sailors and other travelers,” Mrs. McVittie explained. “If used correctly, the outer ring is aligned in a north-south direction, the inner ring is parallel to the equator, and the crosspiece should be parallel to the earth’s axis. So it gives you lots of information. Very handy indeed.”

  Ruthie was intrigued. It was such a simple, compact object, yet it could do so much. “Like an early GPS. And it doesn’t need batteries.”

  Mrs. McVittie put it in Ruthie’s hand. It was heavier than it looked. Ruthie’s fingers traced the tarnished surface, where the scientific markings were punctuated by decorative flourishes, like flowers and vines.

  “Would you like to have it?” Mrs. McVittie offered.

  “But it must be valuable,” Ruthie replied.

  “Oh, not terribly. Maybe it could be part of your payment this week.”

  Ruthie did some quick mental calculating. This job was going to go on for at least two months. She could spare some cash. “Sure!” she agreed.

  Ruthie lay in bed that night thinking about the vast collection of old books and objects that Mrs. McVittie had acquired, not to keep them, but to find new owners for them. She always said she wanted to connect the right things with the right people. The librarian at her school did something similar, making sure all the kids found exactly the right books to read. But Minerva McVittie was dealing with things that were often fragile or valuable and had layers of histories. Like the ring dial.

  Ruthie pictured it again, dangling in front of the shop window. She imagined who might have carried it long ago; a sailor navigating across the ocean on a dangerous voyage of exploration in a creaking wooden ship. Maybe Jack’s pirate ancestor, Jack Norfleet, relied on one. Or perhaps someone like Sophie Lacombe, the young woman they’d met from revolutionary France who traveled abroad with her husband—she might have needed a portable timepiece.

  The lives of the people she’d met through the Thorne Rooms were filled with the kind of adventure that Ruthie yearned for. Claire, snoring in the bed next to her, would be going off on her own study-abroad trip soon. Ruthie fell asleep despite the inkling of an urge, which would grow overnight into an obsession; she couldn’t exactly take off and travel, but as long as she had the magic key, she could explore.

  DECIDING WHICH ROOM OF THE sixty-eight miniatures they should visit first, Ruthie stopped in front of room E9, a beautiful drawing room. It was Thursday morning and Mrs. McVittie had given them the day off because she had appointments. Jack’s mom had invited Ruthie to come for dinner with Edmund Bell and his daughter, Dr. Caroline Bell. She and Jack had the entire day to explore.
>
  “This one is copied from a house in England around 1730,” she called over to Jack.

  “It’s okay—kind of fancy, though.” He was already moving to the next window.

  “Hey, look.” Ruthie pointed at something through the glass.

  Jack came back. “What?”

  “See that hourglass on the table in the back?” Jack nodded. “It doesn’t belong in this room; it’s not in the catalogue,” Ruthie said, referring to the book that included photographs of all sixty-eight rooms—a book she knew by heart.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  They moved directly to the alcove and the door that led to the access corridor behind the rooms.

  “Ready?” Jack said in a low voice.

  Ruthie glanced around the gallery. No one was looking. “Ready.”

  Jack sandwiched Duchess Christina’s magic key between their hands. Its warmth penetrated all the way to Ruthie’s fingertips and sent a small, tingling shock wave through her. An otherworldly breeze blew, wrapping around them, and the space of the alcove stretched and expanded. Ruthie felt the size of her body decreasing. Their clothing readjusted as they shrank, getting smaller and smaller with each second. When the process stopped, they stood five inches tall, directly in front of the now shin-high crack under the alcove door. Ruthie let go of Jack’s hand and they rolled under the door and into the dark corridor behind the European rooms.

  “How many times do you think we’ve done this now?” Jack mused, as he came to his feet.

  “I don’t know—dozens at least.”

  “It’s still awesome.”

  They made the trek up Jack’s handmade toothpick ladder to the ledge that ran along the back of all the rooms. The tiny duo navigated through the wooden framework supporting the displays until they found a set of tall double doors that opened into the rear of room E9. The doors were ajar, which made going in so much easier; they could take a peek first. The museum wasn’t very busy, and they were able to walk in.

  Magic was at work. Light streamed through the two tall windows. It felt like sunshine, not electric light, a distinction hard to describe, but Ruthie had discovered that it was a sensation notably different than warmth from lightbulbs. They heard the sound of birds chirping outside and the room smelled old, of leather and books and sunlight on wood.