The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Constance’s hands were so small that she needed both of them to hold the flashlight, so Sticky held the chart up for her. Squinting at the paper in concentration, she flashed the light once very quickly, followed this with two longer flashes, then paused.

  “Dot, dash, dash,” Sticky said.

  Kate referred to her chart and said, “That’s a W, isn’t it?”

  Constance nodded and flashed the light again: four quick signals.

  “Four dots,” said Reynie. “That’s an H.”

  Again Constance nodded, and in this way they proceeded through the rest of her message. As Mr. Benedict had remarked, they were all quick learners, but even so it took them some minutes, for everyone but Sticky had to keep checking the charts. Finally, though, Constance flashed the code for her last letter (dash, dot — an N), then looked expectantly at Sticky, who immediately began to fidget. The message had been: Why did you run?

  “Hey, that’s a good question,” Kate said. “Why did you run away, Sticky?”

  “It would take too long to answer in code,” Sticky said. “Let’s just practice with a different message, something short.”

  “Skip the code and tell us,” Kate insisted. “If we’re going to be a team, we should get to know each other better, don’t you think, Reynie?”

  “She’s right,” Reynie said. “It’s best that we all know.”

  “I suppose so,” Sticky said miserably. “But it isn’t a very pleasant story to tell.”

  Nor was it a pleasant story to hear, and as Sticky told it, the children’s faces grew long, so that they resembled miniature versions of Milligan (who had, in his silent way, drawn close to listen). It turned out that Sticky had once been quite content with his life — the agreeable child of agreeable parents — but the situation changed once his gifts became known.

  This happened one April day when his mother (whose knees were arthritic, and whose wheelchair needed extra oiling in damp weather) wondered aloud, in a rare fit of irritation, why it had to rain so much. As Sticky helped his mother into her chair, he launched into a detailed explanation of weather systems and local geography. He’d always been a shy, silent child — this was the first time he’d given any hint of his considerable knowledge. His mother checked him for a fever.

  That evening she told his father, who asked Sticky to repeat what he’d said before. Sticky did, word for word. His father had to sit down. Then he rose again, went into the den, and returned carrying several volumes of an outdated encyclopedia. Questioning Sticky together, the Washingtons discovered that their son, who was only seven at the time, carried more information inside his head than a college professor, perhaps two professors, with an engineer thrown in to boot. Astonished and proud, they could hardly have been more excited if they’d found buried treasure.

  And in a way they had, for right away they began entering him in quiz competitions, which Sticky won easily. He took home substantial prizes: a new encyclopedia to replace the outdated one, a new writing desk, a cash prize, a savings bond. The more Sticky won, the more excited his parents grew. They encouraged him to study constantly, to read through their meals together, to stay up late reading, to stop wasting time with his friends. The pressure to win began to distract him. His parents grew angry when he missed questions — which he began to do more and more, as he tended to get mixed up when nervous — and scolded him for not caring about them. If Sticky cared, they said, he would try harder to win, since only by winning would he bring wealth and happiness to the family.

  This came as a surprise to Sticky, who knew they’d never been wealthy but hadn’t realized they were unhappy. And for him it was different — the more he won, the unhappier he became. But though he sometimes missed questions whose answers he knew, he still won the contests easily, gaining admission to bigger contests with bigger prizes, until at last his parents were perfectly dazzled by the prospect of fortune, and Sticky was perfectly exhausted. Despite complaining and even begging, however, he couldn’t persuade them to let him stop. If he wanted to be rich and famous, they said, he must keep winning. When he replied that he didn’t care to be rich and famous, they didn’t believe him and said he was only being lazy.

  Finally Sticky decided to make a point by pretending to run away. He left a note, then hid for several days in a cellar closet his parents thought was boarded up, but which Sticky had found a way to enter. From there he was able to venture forth to sneak food, use the bathroom, and do a little spying on his parents. At first he was pleased by what he saw: The Washingtons, extremely distressed, had raised an outcry about their lost son, seeking help from all quarters. But then something unfortunate happened. A rich man, himself a former quiz champion, heard of the case and gave a large sum of money to the Washingtons to aid their search. Word of his generosity quickly got around, which inspired other philanthropists — unwilling to be outdone — to send even more money; and before long people everywhere were sending gifts to the Washingtons, who were growing rich. To his great astonishment and mortification, Sticky saw his parents begin trying less and less to find him, instead devoting their time and energy toward the proper disposal of their newfound riches. At last, one day, when he managed to overhear his father saying something about being “better off now” — better off with him gone, Sticky realized — he could no longer bear their betrayal. He ran away for good.

  “I’d been on my own for weeks,” he concluded, removing his glasses to wipe away a tear, “when I saw Mr. Benedict’s advertisement in the paper. That’s my story. You all know the rest. Now can we get on with the practice?”

  After a short, unhappy silence, the others agreed, and Constance took up the flashlight. Her message went more quickly this time; it was a single word: sorry. The others were taken aback. Even Milligan, who had retreated to his roses and seemed not to be paying attention, raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s okay,” Sticky said.

  “Aren’t we a depressing bunch?” said Kate. “If we continue like this, we’ll have to start calling it remorse code.”

  “What’s remorse?” asked Constance.

  “Feeling sad about something you did,” said Reynie.

  “Oh, do you feel sad, George Washington?” asked Constance.

  Sticky twitched with irritation. “She was talking about you. And please don’t call me that.”

  “I didn’t call you ‘that.’ I called you George Washington. Ask the others. They heard me. I definitely did not call you ‘that,’ George Washington.”

  Kate sighed and muttered, “So much for remorse.”

  “And what about Milligan?” Constance said. “Why is he so sad?”

  All eyes went to their bodyguard, who had left off tending the roses and was oiling the gate hinges. He looked as if he could use an oiling himself — he moved quite creakily, and with a pronounced stoop, so that he truly seemed as old as he appeared in his disguise. He cast not a glance in their direction. Either he hadn’t heard the question or else was pretending he hadn’t. But Constance wouldn’t let this pass.

  “Milligan! Come tell us why you’re so dreadfully glum!”

  “Good grief,” said Sticky, “do you have to drag out everybody’s sad tales? Why don’t you leave him in peace?”

  She wouldn’t listen, however, and after a few more stubborn requests, Milligan at last set down his oil can and shuffled over to them. “All right,” he said in a resigned tone. “I’ll tell you.”

  The children all sat up straight.

  “Several years ago,” Milligan began, “I awoke, blindfolded, in a hard metal chair. My hands and feet were cuffed together, a metal restraint held my head in place, and as I came awake, a man’s voice said, ‘This nut is a hard one to crack.’ Indeed I felt I had been cracked — I had a ferocious headache, I was hungry and exhausted, and for some reason my fingers and toes were stinging. Worse: When I tried to recall where I was, and how I had come there, I found I couldn’t.”

  “Amnesia?” Reynie said.

  Milligan nodded. “Appa
rently I’d received a serious blow to the head. I could recall nothing at all — not my past, not my purpose, not even my name. To this day I have no memory of who I am.”

  “Then why did you say your name was Milligan?” Constance asked, almost accusingly, as if he’d lied to them.

  “When I regained consciousness, it was the first name that flew into my mind. Perhaps it was in fact my name, but it didn’t feel like my name, if you understand me. It seemed to apply to me somehow, and to be important, and so perhaps it is my name, but I’m afraid I’ll never know.”

  “What happened next?” asked Kate.

  “Well, next I heard the same voice say, ‘Let’s rouse him again. I grow weary of this one.’ Then, shaking my arm, he said, in a very different, gentle tone, ‘Wake up, my friend, wake up,’ unaware I’d been awake long enough to have heard him discussing me like a cut of meat.

  “Pretending to come awake, I said, ‘What? Have I been asleep? Where am I?’ To which he replied, ‘You’re safe; that’s the important thing. We’ve rescued you from certain death and are here to help you. Now, is it true you remember nothing?’

  “I didn’t, of course, as I’ve told you. And apparently I had told the man this too. But as he now seemed to expect that answer and seemed intent on taking advantage of it somehow, I said, ‘On the contrary. I remember everything perfectly.’

  “The man cried, ‘What? You’re lying!’

  “‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry you find it so distressing.’

  “Then the voice grew cunning and said, ‘If you remember so clearly, tell me why you are here.’

  “‘I believe I’ll leave the telling to you,’ I replied.

  “‘The sneak! You’re lying to us, you dirty —’ the man shouted, and then, strangely, all was silent, as if someone had clapped a hand over his mouth.

  “After a while I said, ‘Dirty what? Please tell me — the suspense is killing me.’

  “The voice returned, much calmer now. ‘It won’t be suspense that does it,’ he said. ‘If you don’t crack tomorrow, we’ll toss you into the harbor.’

  “‘Well, I’m sure I would infinitely prefer that fate to the smell of your breath,’ I replied, upon which he struck me hard across the face and ordered me taken from the room.

  “As it happened, that blow did me a good turn, for it loosened the blindfold. I had only just left the room when the blindfold began to slip, and though my captors didn’t realize it, I could soon see fairly well. Two men in suits were leading me along a stone passage. They moved slowly to accommodate my pace, which was hampered by my chain-cuffed ankles. As we walked, I studied my hands, still cuffed in front of me, and became aware that one was clutching something. Wonderingly I opened my fist, noticing as I did so that my fingernails had been bitten beyond the quick, so that my fingertips were raw. (This explained why they stung, and judging from the pain in my toes, my toenails had been bitten off as well.) In my hand I discovered a tiny device, rather like a twisted hairpin. To my great surprise I realized it had been fashioned from my fingernails and toenails. All this I must have done myself, but I had no memory of it.

  “Imagine then how amazed I was to discover that I knew what the little device was for. I slipped it into the lock of my handcuffs (my fingers seemed to know what they were doing, though I did not), and just as we came to a stairway, I heard the lock spring — I’d picked it in less than a minute. Before they knew I was free, I had knelt down and cuffed the men’s ankles together. Then I hopped out of reach, and my captors, trying to pursue, fell on their faces. Before they could regain their feet, I had picked the locks on the ankle cuffs, snapped them onto the men’s wrists, and bounded down the stairs.

  “After that, my getaway was fairly simple. I broke out into the darkness of a rainy night. I was pursued, of course, but I made my way through a hilly terrain until I came to a cliff overlooking the harbor. The water looked shallow and lay about a hundred feet below me, but as I had no other choice, I dove straightaway. There followed some troublesome business of swimming to the mainland while pursuers in boats tried to capture me with nets and hooks, that sort of thing. But I proved a good swimmer, and the rocks in the channel are terrible for boats. In the end I escaped.”

  All of this had been spoken softly, without the least trace of excitement or drama in Milligan’s voice. But the children, listening, could hardly contain themselves, and when he’d finished, they burst forth with questions: How had he come here? What was he doing on Nomansan Island in the first place? It was Nomansan Island, wasn’t it? And those men in suits . . .

  “Yes, it was the same men, the ones you saw in the maze. They weren’t sure where they know me from, but I certainly remember them. And yes, it was Nomansan Island — it was the Institute — that I escaped from. Why I was there I can’t say, but Mr. Benedict is convinced I was a secret agent, an employee of a government agency long since dismantled. I have no way of telling.”

  “Maybe Mr. Benedict can find out,” Reynie said.

  “It was that hope that led me to him,” Milligan admitted. “I’d spent months seeking information about my past, but no one believed my story, and no one had any answers. Finally I learned about a man worth meeting — not a government agent himself, but a brilliant man of mysterious purposes who always seemed to know more about everything than anyone else did. This, of course, was Mr. Benedict. But though he’s helped me make sense of what’s happened, and has earned my loyalty, the entire business is so extraordinarily secretive and complicated that I’ve long been convinced I will never learn anything about my past.”

  “How awful,” said Reynie.

  “Yes, it’s too bad,” said Sticky, though not quite convincingly, for at the moment he rather wished he couldn’t remember his own past, given the grief it brought him.

  “Hey, does your amnesia have something to do with your silly disguises?” Constance asked.

  Milligan clamped his straw hat more tightly on his head. “My ‘silly’ disguises are useful for other reasons, but yes, Constance, it would be unfortunate if some enemy from my past recognized me, but I couldn’t recognize him. It’s better never to be recognized at all.”

  “So there’s really no hope your memory will return?” Kate asked.

  “Oh, I suppose there’s some slight hope. Mr. Benedict has tried hypnosis and other treatments on me, all without luck. Still, he says it’s possible some significant event, or the appearance of an important object or person from my past, or some other unknown thing, might break down the door and let my memories out. I’m afraid, however, that I’m not much given to hope anymore.”

  “If not for hope, what keeps you going?” asked Reynie, who had an ugly suspicion that there might come a time, and not so far away, when things would seem hopeless to him, too.

  “Duty,” said Milligan. “Nothing else, only a sense of duty. I know the Sender is out to do harm. I feel obliged to stop him. Or at the very least, to try.”

  “And do you think we can?” Reynie asked. “Do you think he can be stopped?”

  In response Milligan only went back to his oil can. He did not look at the children again.

  The Thing to Come

  When the children had studied Morse code until dots and dashes swam in their heads even with their eyes closed, Rhonda called them inside. It was early evening now, the light in the dining room window was a soft amber color, and all through the house the wooden floors, curiously enough, groaned and creaked like a ship at sea.

  “That happens sometimes after a morning rain,” said Rhonda as the children took seats at the table. “Don’t worry, it’s a sound old house — we won’t sink.” She set several pages of notes before each of them. “Now that you understand your mission and have a good start on your Morse code, Mr. Benedict would like for you to understand better what we’re up against.”

  The children’s ears perked up. There was more? Reynie began to flip through his papers, some of which bore faint smears of peanut butter.

&n
bsp; “Number Two has summarized everything in these notes,” Rhonda said. “If you read quickly, you should be able to finish before supper. Mr. Benedict will come by in a little while to answer any questions.”

  “He wants us to read all of this?” Constance said, as if she couldn’t believe Mr. Benedict’s nerve.

  Rhonda only smiled and went out.

  The children — all except Constance, who was too busy humphing — set to their notes. Sticky read so quickly that he seemed hardly to have started before he’d finished. He sat quietly, deep in thought, waiting for the others. Ten minutes later, Reynie had finished, too, and Kate, noting this, set aside her last few pages and asked the boys to fill her in.

  What the children learned from the notes was this: The Institute on Nomansan Island generated all its own electricity using the power of the tides — an endless source of energy. The Institute’s tidal turbines were considered the best in the entire world; they were also capable of producing enough energy to power a hundred Institutes, let alone one.

  These turbines had been invented by a man named Ledroptha Curtain, who, as a young scientist, had published impressive papers on a wide variety of topics — everything from tidal energy to mapping the brain — until abruptly the papers stopped. No one heard from him for many years. Then one day he reappeared and founded the Institute, apparently having turned his genius to matters of education.

  There was no doubt: Ledroptha Curtain was the Sender. And yet about certain things there was quite a lot of doubt indeed. For instance, the hidden messages being sent from the Institute were broadcast only a few times each day, and on a very weak signal. But the tidal turbines should be able to produce an enormous amount of energy, much more than necessary to power the Institute — and certainly enough to transmit the Sender’s messages on a high-powered signal rather than a weak one. Why, then, had Curtain made his turbines so extravagant if he didn’t intend to use that extra power? And why did he send out his messages intermittently when he could be broadcasting around the clock?