Angel of the Battlefield by Ann Hood Read Free Book Online Page A

his arms.
    He blinked. Twice. No, he decided, the picture was just a picture. Relieved, he practically ran the rest of the way up the stairs. At the top, in the hallway, the wall gaped open, revealing the secret stairway that led up to The Treasure Chest. What if his sister had gone up there and something terrible had happened to her? He tried to remember what the Woman in Pink had told them. Strange noises? Transparent women floating around?
    â€œAre you okay?” Felix called from the bottom of the stairs.
    When she didn’t answer him, he took a deep breath and slowly climbed the narrow stairway. Maisie had unclipped the red velvet rope, and Felix saw her standing inside The Treasure Chest, her face full of wonder.
    â€œLook at all this stuff,” she said.
    Felix took another deep breath and stepped over the threshold, half expecting an alarm to go off.
    But instead the room was hushed as if it were holding its breath. The walls were a blue that made Felix think of the ocean, and the lighter blue ceiling had puffy white clouds painted on it. That combination gave him the feeling that he was at sea or floating. Despite only a bit of moonlight coming in through the Tiffany glass window, The Treasure Chest seemed to be bathed in a soft amber light. Felix glanced around but couldn’t find the source of the light. A massive desk, smack in the middle, dominated. Bookshelves lined each wall. In one corner stood a large globe on a pedestal. There were tables here and there, but every surface of them and the desk was covered with stuff: clocks, stones, small boxes, feathers, papers, buttons, hats, seashells, animal pelts, rings, china cups, quill pens, a compass, paper of all kinds—parchment, papyrus, lined notebook, typing, wallpaper, sandpaper—chunks of jade and amethyst.
    â€œShe said he was a collector,” Felix said.
    â€œBut why would he want something like this?” Maisie said, picking up a feather.
    â€œMaybe we shouldn’t touch anything,” Felix said.
    To his relief, she put it down.
    But then she picked up something else, a faded scroll from the desk. Carefully, she unrolled it. The paper was old and stiff and about twice the size of a sheet of computer paper.
    â€œWhat is it?” Felix said.
    â€œA list of some kind,” Maisie said, frowning.
    â€œLike a shopping list?”
    When Maisie didn’t answer him, Felix decided to look for himself. He reached over and tried to snatch the paper from his sister’s hand before she could resist. But when he grabbed onto it, Maisie yanked it back. Their eyes met across the desk, their hands clutching the paper.
    The room filled with the deafening sounds of gunfire. The air smelled of sulfur and smoke. Felix tried to let go of the paper, but he couldn’t.
It was as if his hand was superglued to it. They were each aware of being lifted ever so slightly off the ground. Maisie’s toes barely reached the carpet.
    From outside the stained-glass window came the sound of their mother’s car on the long driveway, Great-Aunt Maisie’s old blue 1967 Mustang that was in desperate need of a new muffler.
    Startled, Maisie let go of the paper. As soon as she did, the air smelled like it usually did, all musty and mothbally. She and Felix were both jolted back down onto the carpet.
    â€œWere we just . . . um . . . in the air?” Felix said.
    â€œSort of.” Maisie gulped.
    â€œLike . . . about to fly or something?” Felix asked. His heart beat so hard and so loud that he thought he might be having a heart attack. People
could
actually get scared to death, couldn’t they?
    â€œI don’t know,” Maisie said. Her eyes darted around the room as if she might find an explanation. Her heart was beating hard and loud, too, but she wasn’t afraid. Instead, Maisie was more excited than she’d ever been in her whole life.
    â€œWe started to
fly
!” she said, the