Castle of Sticky’s namesake
Against westernmost wall
Not visible
Need tool
Olive trees nearby
No cork or pine for two meters
“Well, that’s not very helpful,” Kate said. “There are olive trees ‘nearby’ the whole wall, and hardly a pine tree in sight. Which ones are the cork trees, Sticky? I haven’t the faintest.”
Sticky pointed. “There, that’s a cork tree. And there and there. Only those few that I can see.”
“That makes for an odd clue, then,” said Reynie. “Why mention ‘olive trees nearby’ and ‘no cork or pine for two meters’ when that can be said of almost the entire wall? It doesn’t narrow down the location a bit. Let me see that, will you, Kate?”
As Reynie studied the letter with furrowed brow, Kate shrugged and said, “Maybe we should just start walking along the wall and see what we find. If Captain Noland’s right, it’ll be easy to spot where something’s just been buried.” She looked around again at all the people. “The hard part will be digging without getting noticed. If we had time to wait we could sneak back in at night. Maybe that’s what Mr. Benedict thought we’d do. Otherwise I can’t see how he expected us to pull this off without getting in trouble.”
“Neither can I,” said Reynie, still studying the letter. “Which is why I’m wondering —”
“Get back, everyone!” Constance said. She grabbed Kate’s ponytail and jerked on it as if pulling on the reins of a runaway horse. “Back! Back around the corner! It’s Jackson! He’s here!”
“What are you talking about?” Kate snapped, trying to pry Constance’s fingers from her hair. “That hurts, Con —”
“Do what she says, Kate!” said Reynie, grabbing her arm. “Step back!”
Puzzled and irritated, Kate stepped back around the corner of the castle. She set Constance on the ground — none too gently — and said, “This had better be good.”
Constance ignored her, instead looking up at Reynie with searching eyes. “Why do you think he’s here, Reynie? Do you think he knew we were coming? What should we do?”
Reynie put his hands on her shoulders. “Just stay calm and tell me what happened. Did you see Jackson? Or did you, you know —”
“I just suddenly knew. I could just tell.”
“Are you two talking about Jackson the Executive?” Sticky asked.
“The one and only,” said Reynie. He peered around the corner of the castle, studying all the people on the wall, near the cannons, on the grassy lawn . . . And then there he was, a swaggering young man stepping out of the shade of an olive tree. Jackson. Their old tormentor, one of Mr. Curtain’s trusted Executives. He’d seemed unfamiliar at first — he wasn’t wearing the tunic and sash he’d always worn at the Institute — but it was him, all right. That sharp, knife-like nose, the strutting walk, the stocky build and bright red hair. Reynie could feel his heartbeat picking up speed. “She’s right. I see him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sticky said in a miserable tone. “Here?”
Constance seemed shaken up. “I probably just saw him and didn’t realize it, right?”
“I’m sure that’s what happened, Constance,” said Reynie, trying to sound calm. “And lucky for us it did. He would have spotted us for sure. He’s patrolling the wall.”
“Patrolling it?” Kate said.
“That’s what it looks like,” said Reynie, peeking around the corner again. “He’s just pacing back and forth, like he’s waiting for something.”
“Or someone,” Constance said.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Sticky said, taking out his polishing cloth. “And here I’d thought this part, at least, was going to be easy.”
Kate’s face darkened. “Reynie, if Jackson’s here . . .”
“Then Jillson’s probably here, too. I know.”
If Jackson was dangerous alone, he was doubly dangerous with Jillson, his constant companion. The children had never determined if the two Executives were brother and sister, boyfriend and girlfriend, or simply partners in crime. They didn’t even know them by any names other than Jackson and Jillson — which could have been first names, last names, or nicknames. But none of this mattered. What mattered was that Jackson stood between them and their mission, and that Jillson, no doubt, was lurking nearby.
“Constance,” Reynie said, “do you have a feeling about Jillson?”
“Oh, yes, I hate her,” Constance said. “Don’t you?”
“I meant a feeling about whether or not she’s here.”
“Oh. No. No, I would have told you if I had, wouldn’t I? But that doesn’t mean she isn’t here. Maybe she’s just on the other side of the castle.”
“Or maybe something terrible happened to her,” Kate suggested hopefully. “She always tied her ponytail with wire, remember? Maybe she got struck by lightning!”
“I’ll never understand how you can joke at times like these,” said Sticky, anxiously looking around.
“Who said I was joking?” said Kate. “Anyway, if she shows up, we can deal with it, can’t we? I’m sure I can handle her by myself — Jillson or Jackson, either one. With the three of you —” she glanced at Constance “— well, the two and a half of you to handle the other one, we can probably win if it comes to a fight. At the very least we’ll give them a run for their money.”
“It can’t come to that, Kate,” said Reynie. “I don’t know why Jackson’s here, but if he sees us he’ll report it to Mr. Curtain, and that will wreck everything. We can’t afford for him even to suspect that we’re here — not without putting Mr. Benedict and Number Two in greater danger.”
“So what do we do?” asked Constance. “How are we supposed to dig? How do we even find where to dig?”
Reynie quickly returned to the letter. He felt sure that Mr. Benedict had provided an answer if only he knew how to find it. A lot of the directions seemed unimportant or unhelpful, so perhaps they were meant as distractions — like the extra words in the bottom corners of the journal pages. And what was this business about going down for their hint, then up to where the clues led them? Mr. Benedict had written the clues at the bottom of the page, and they did lead uphill to the castle, but why say it like that? For that matter, why did he say “hint” first — as if there were only one — and then “clues,” which implied more than one? Did Mr. Benedict mean to suggest a difference between “hint” and “clues”? Why would he do that?
Sticky was growing more anxious by the second. It was well and good for Kate to conjecture about “handling” Jackson and Jillson — she was so quick she probably wouldn’t get handled in return. But he wasn’t Kate. He would almost certainly get handled, and just thinking about it was enough to make him sweat. “Reynie?” he prompted. “We need to hurry!”
“I know,” Reynie said, still poring over the letter. “That’s what’s troubling me. I don’t think Mr. Benedict meant for us to spend hours searching for our next clue. He expected us to be able to go straight to it — and to recover it quickly, without getting caught. The secret has to be in the letter. It has to be!”
“So find it,” snipped Constance. “Come on, Reynie, do your thing. Where do we dig?”
Reynie stared at the letter, desperately willing the answer to come to him — and suddenly it did. He started and looked up. “I don’t think we do.”