The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages

  Copyright

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

  Copyright © 2019 by Trenton Lee Stewart

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Manuela Montoya Escobar

  Cover art copyright © 2019 by Manuela Montoya Escobar

  Cover design by David Caplan

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Hachette Book Group

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  First Edition: September 2019

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Stewart, Trenton Lee, author. | Montoya, Manu, illustrator.

  Title: The mysterious Benedict Society and the riddle of ages / by Trenton Lee Stewart ; illustrated by Manu Montoya.

  Description: First edition. | New York ; Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 2019. | “Megan Tingley Books.” | Summary: “With the Ten Men on the loose and a telepathic enemy tracking them, Kate, Reynie, Sticky, and Constance must join with a new Society member to keep their world safe.”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019009426| ISBN 9780316452649 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316452632 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S8513 Mym 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009426

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-45264-9 (hardcover), 978-0-316-45263-2 (ebook), 978-0-316-42590-2 (large print)

  E3-20190816-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Surprising Arrivals and Rooftop Reunions

  A Kind of History, or The Nature of the Mess

  Bright Signals and Dark Places

  The Benefits of Emptiness

  Mysterious Doors and Not-So-Secret Catches

  Melancholy Musings and Rueful Ruminations

  Distressing Daydreams and Fair Observations

  A Quest to Rescue S.Q. and a Second Chance Encounter

  The Importance of Lollipops and Ice Cream

  A Thousand Hidden Footsteps

  Key Questions

  Frightening Endeavors and Daring Maneuvers

  Plazas, Playgrounds, and Parts Unknown

  Where One Draws the Line

  Return to Nomansan Island

  Into the KEEP

  A Plan by Any Other Name

  The Wolf at the Door

  Of All Times and Places

  The Bait, the Barrier, and the Battle

  Never Odd or Even

  The Antidote at Last

  The Opposite of Zugzwang

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More

  For Maren

  —T.L.S.

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  In a city called Stonetown, on a quiet street of spacious old houses and gracious old trees, a young man named Reynie Muldoon Perumal was contemplating a door. The door, currently closed, belonged to his study on the third floor of one of those houses—in this case a gray-stoned edifice half-covered in ivy, with a magnificent elm tree in its courtyard and, surrounding the courtyard, an old iron fence quite overgrown with roses. From his study window Reynie might easily have been looking out upon that tree or those flowers, or he might have lifted his gaze to the sky, which on this fine spring morning was a lovely shade of cobalt blue. Instead, he sat at his desk in an attitude of attention, staring at the door, wondering who in the world could be standing on the other side.

  For a stranger to be lurking in the hallway should have been impossible, given the fact of locked doors, security codes, and a trustworthy guard. Yet Reynie’s ears had detected an unfamiliar tread. His ears were not particularly sharp; indeed, his hearing, like almost everything else about him, was perfectly average: He had average brown eyes and hair, an average fair complexion, an average tendency to sing in the shower, and so on. But when it came to noticing things—noticing things, understanding things, and figuring things out—“average” could hardly describe him.

  He had been aware, for the last thirty seconds or so, of something different in the house. Preoccupied as he’d been with urgent matters, however, Reynie had given the signs little thought. The shriek and clang of the courtyard gate had raised no suspicions, for not a minute earlier he had spied Captain Plugg, the diligent guard, leaving through that gate to make one of her rounds about the neighborhood. Hearing the sounds again after he’d turned from the window, Reynie had simply assumed the guard forgot something, or was struck by a need for the bathroom. The sudden draft in his study, which always accompanied the opening of the front door downstairs, he had naturally attributed to the return of Captain Plugg as well. He had wondered, vaguely, at the absence of her heavy footsteps below, but his mind had quickly conjured an image of that powerfully built woman taking a seat near the entrance to remove something from her boot.

  Too quickly, Reynie realized, when he heard that unfamiliar tread in the hallway. And now he sat staring at the door with a great intensity of focus.

  A knock sounded—a light, tentative tapping—and in an instant Reynie’s apprehension left him. There were people in Stonetown right now who would very much like to hurt him, but this, he could tell, was not one of them.

  “Come in?” said Reynie, his tone inquisitive. There was no reply. He glanced at his watch, then at the clock on the wall, and then at the two-way radio that sat—silent, for the moment—on his cluttered desk. “Come in!” he called, more forcefully.

  The doorknob rattled. Slowly turned. And at last the door swung open, revealing—as Reynie had by this point already deduced—a child. It seemed the most unlikely of developments, but the fact remained: The stranger was, of all things, a little boy.

  “Well, hello,” Reynie said to the boy, who stood grinning shyly with a hand on the doorknob, swinging the door back and forth. The boy’s hair, very fine and black, was in a frightfully tangled state. His skin, of a light olive tone, was smudged here and there with a dark, oily substance, and stuck to various places on his shirt and trousers (both quite filthy) was the fur of at least two kinds of animal. But the boy’s large eyes, so dark brown as to be almost black, were shining with excitement.

  “I’m Tai,” said the boy, still swinging the door back and forth. “I’m five.”

  Reynie feigned confusion. “Wait, which is it? Are you Tai or are you five?”

  The boy giggled. “Both!” he said, letting go of the doorknob and approaching Reynie’s desk in a rush. He drew up short, resting his hands on the edge of the desk and his chin on the back of his hands. “My name is Tai Li, and I’m five years old.” He said this without lifting his chin from his hands, and thus with some difficulty.

  “Oh!” Reynie exclaimed, with another glance at his watch. “I think I understand now. Well, Tai, my name is—”

  “Reynie Muldoon!” the boy interrupted, with a delighted laugh. “I know who you are! I have a name that starts with M, too! My middle name does. I’m not going to tell you what it is, though. You have to guess.”

  “It isn’t Muldoon?” Reynie asked, quickly moving the radio, which Tai had noticed and reached for.

  “No!” said Tai, laughing again.

  “Tell you what,” Reynie said. “I’ll make more guesses later. And I’ll let you touch the radio later, too, okay? Right now it’s important that we don’t touch it. Right now we’re expecting to hear from a friend—”

  Tai gasped. “Is it Kate Wetherall? The Great Kate Weather Machine? Who always carries around a red bucket full of tools?”

  Reynie raised an eyebrow. “Well… she used to, anyway. These days she’s more of a utility-belt-and-secret-pockets kind of weather machine.” A wistful expression crossed his face at this, like the shadow of a swiftly moving cloud. Reynie fixed the little boy with a curious gaze. “You seem to know an awful lot about us, Tai.”

  “You saved the world!” Tai whispered excitedly, as if he’d been bursting to let Reynie in on this secret but knew he wasn’t supposed to.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say the whole world,” said Reynie with a skeptical look. “And I assume you’re talking not just about me, but—”

  “All of you!” Tai whispered. “The four of you! And Mr. Ben
edict, and Rhonda, and Number Two, and Milligan…” Here the little boy frowned and consulted his fingers, counting off names in a whisper. He interrupted himself to scratch furiously at an itch on his arm, then began again.

  “Hold that thought, Tai,” said Reynie, and raising his voice, he said, “Intercom. Sticky’s office.”

  A beep sounded from a speaker on the wall near the door, and Tai whirled to look. The speaker hung at an imperfect angle, with plaster peeling away all around it, and was speckled with ancient paint. It would not appear to be a functioning speaker. Nonetheless, its green indicator light flickered to life, and after a brief initial crackling sound, a young man’s voice rang out.

  “What’s the word?” said the voice, quite loudly and brusquely.

  Tai gave a little jump. He glanced at Reynie, then gawked at the speaker again.

  “No word yet,” Reynie replied. He cleared his throat. “But, say, George. Were you aware that a five-year-old boy named Tai Li has entered the house, evidently by himself, and is now standing here in my study with me?”

  There was a pause. Another crackle. Then: “Huh.”

  “Right?” said Reynie, as if they had just discussed the matter at length.

  “The timing is not exactly what one would wish.”

  “I’m guessing the timing has everything to do with it.”

  Tai turned to Reynie with huge eyes. “Is that Sticky Washington?” he whispered. “Who’s read everything and knows everything and never forgets anything? But gets ner—”

  “That’s him, all right,” Reynie interrupted. “Although lately he prefers his given name, George. And by the way, Tai, he can hear you even if you’re whispering.”

  Reynie wouldn’t have thought the little boy’s eyes could get any wider, but wider they got, and two small hands flew up to cover his mouth. They were very dirty hands, too. Reynie supposed now wasn’t the moment to discuss hygiene.

  “Hello, Tai,” said the voice through the speaker. “I look forward to meeting you.”

  Tai made as if to clap his hands, then seemed to think better of it. He ran over to stand directly beneath the speaker. “Hi!” he shouted, gazing up at it. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to reach it with an outstretched finger.

  Reynie leaped up from his desk. “Let’s not touch the speaker, either, okay, Tai? It might fall off. Let me find something you can touch, how about?”

  The speaker crackled. “So, Reynie, would you say this matter needs immediate attention, or—?”

  “No, I’ve got it. Just keeping you in the loop.”

  “Roger that. Intercom off.”

  “Intercom off,” echoed Reynie, and the green indicator light turned red.

  “It turned red!” Tai declared. “So that means it’s off!”

  “Right you are,” said Reynie, casting about for something to give the little boy.

  Tai, seeing what he was up to, also looked around. The study in general was rather less cluttered and unruly than the desk, with less to offer his curious eye. Overstuffed bookshelves stood against every wall; an overstuffed chair stood in one corner; and behind the desk sat an antique chest covered with tidy stacks of papers, which Reynie now hastily began to clear away.

  One particular stack of papers, however—a thick bunch of envelopes—seemed to catch in Reynie’s hands. Each envelope was addressed from one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Most were still sealed, but the few letters that Reynie had read said almost exactly the same thing: Delighted to inform you… would be among the youngest ever to attend this university in its long, illustrious history… naturally covering your tuition and room and board, along with a generous stipend for expenses… an extremely rare honor… if you will please reply as soon as…

  The envelopes all bore postmarks from months ago. Reynie had yet to reply. He looked at the stack in his hands for a long moment, as he had done many times in recent weeks, before finally setting it aside.

  Meanwhile, as this clearing away of papers seemed to be taking a minute, Tai turned and spotted, on the back of the door through which he had just entered, a large map of the greater Stonetown area. Concentrated in the center of the map, in the heart of Stonetown itself, were thirteen pushpins. Tai counted them out loud—twice to be sure.

  Reynie, without looking, knew full well what Tai was counting, and as he felt beneath the lid of the locked chest for its two secret catches, he prepared himself for the inevitable question. Under normal circumstances, it would hardly seem wise to inform a young child that those pushpins represented thirteen of the most dangerous men in the world; that those men, just as the location of the pushpins suggested, were now gathered right here in Stonetown; and that Reynie’s sole purpose at present was to deal with them—which meant that the child, simply by being associated with Reynie, might be in great peril.

  Tai’s presence in Reynie’s study was a clear indicator that these were decidedly not normal circumstances, however. Perhaps, given time, Reynie would sort out an appropriate answer. For now, he opted for distraction.

  “… thirteen,” Tai said, finishing his recount and turning to ask the question.

  “Do you know what a baker’s dozen is, Tai?” Reynie asked before the boy could open his mouth.

  Tai knitted his brow, thinking. He scratched his chest and then, holding his palms out in a very adultlike fashion, announced, “Well, you know, a dozen is twelve. I know that.”

  Reynie couldn’t help smiling. He tapped his nose and pointed at Tai. “That’s right. And if you add just one more, some people call that a baker’s dozen.”

  Tai thought about this, making a great show of knitting his brow again. Then a look of understanding came into his eyes, and he laughed. “You told me that because I was counting the pins! Because there’s thirteen!”

  “Right again!” Reynie declared. He did not explain that “the Baker’s Dozen” was the rather pleasant term that he and his friends used for some extremely unpleasant men, eleven of whom had just escaped from a supposedly escape-proof prison in Brig City. Nor did he explain that the breakout had been engineered by the remaining two men (who had never been captured in the first place) with the assistance of a mysterious figure whose identity was yet unknown.

  Reynie said none of these troubling things. Instead he opened the antique chest and said, “Have you ever seen a kaleidoscope?”

  By way of reply, Tai dashed toward Reynie, stumbled over evidently nothing at all, recovered his balance, and arrived at Reynie’s side with face alight and hands outstretched. “Can I hold it?” he said, bouncing up and down on his toes. “Can I look through it?”

  “Be very careful,” Reynie said, placing the large kaleidoscope in the boy’s hands. “It’s heavier than you think.” He felt Tai’s small hands dutifully tighten their grip; only then did he let go.

  Tai studied the kaleidoscope reverently before putting it to his eye (his other eye remained wide open) and directing it at Reynie’s midsection. “Wow,” he breathed. “This was on a submarine?”

  Reynie blinked. “You’re thinking of a periscope. This is a kaleidoscope. It has colors! Try pointing it at the light.”

  Without lowering the kaleidoscope, Tai turned his whole body around and craned his head upward. “Oh, that’s even better!”

  “Isn’t it, though? Try closing your other eye.”

  Tai tried ever so hard but couldn’t quite manage it. “I’m still learning to wink,” he said, half squinting in a way that gave him an air of great seriousness. He kept staring through the kaleidoscope, moving it slightly back and forth, and uttering quiet expressions of delight.

  Reynie felt an urge to tousle the little boy’s hair. He resisted, however, because of the tangles, and was instead about to pat Tai on the shoulder when the radio on his desk gave an extremely loud squawk. So sudden and so loud was the noise, in fact, that Tai dropped the kaleidoscope. Or rather, he did not drop the kaleidoscope so much as fling it up and away from him, and only by diving forward with hands outstretched and landing painfully on his belly did Reynie manage to catch it. For a moment he remained in that position, emitting an involuntary moan of both pain and relief.

  “Hooray!” Tai cheered. “You caught it!” He tumbled down onto the floor next to Reynie and lay with his face a few inches away. “I’m sorry I dropped it, though,” he whispered, and again Reynie noticed how the little boy’s dark eyes shone. He also noticed how badly Tai needed to brush his teeth.