Free This Book Is Not Good For You by Pseudonymous Bosch

happen in old legends and movies and stuff,” agreed Yo-Yoji.
    But neither of them sounded very confident. The trouble was, as members of the Terces Society, they’d already seen plenty of things that were only supposed to happen in legends and movies. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that they’d been having a picnic lunch with a two-foot tall, five-hundred-year-old man born in a bottle. (Oh, and did I mention he was a cannibal?) *
    A man’s cough—a dry, raspy cough—made the kids snap to attention. And made the hairs on their neck stand on end.
    The worst had already happened, Cass reminded herself. Her mother had been taken from her. She was ready to face anyone, even Senor Hugo.
    Slowly, they all looked up.
    “Cassandra, Max-Ernest, Yo-Yoji, it’s a little early in the morning for clown camp, isn’t it? Don’t you know a circus never stirs before noon?”
    It was Mr. Wallace. The gaunt man lurched over them, blocking them from standing up.
    “At your age, you should be sleeping in on a Sunday,” he prattled on. “Me, I couldn’t get to sleep so I decided to get a jump start on my day. Then again, I hardly fit in in the circus, do I?”
    “Us… too,” Cass stammered. “I mean, we don’t fit in—I mean, we got up early.”
    “Hard to get your story straight sometimes, isn’t it?” Mr. Wallace queried.
    Mr. Wallace was the oldest member of the Terces Society—not necessarily in age (Cass wasn’t sure but she thought Pietro was older) but in the sense that he had been part of the society longest. According to Pietro, Mr. Wallace knew more about the history of the Secret, and more about the Midnight Sun, than any other living person. (At least more than anyone outside of the Midnight Sun. And to what extent the Masters were considered living was open to debate.) And yet, for some reason, Cass had never trusted Mr. Wallace. And she’d never felt that he trusted her.
    Mr. Wallace peered over her shoulder. “Ah, the memoirs of the monk, Rafael de Leon. A most vivid account, don’t you think? I’m glad you’re following your orders so assiduously.”
    “My orders?” Cass’s heart skipped a beat. How could he know about Hugo’s note? Unless…
    “From Pietro. To investigate the Tuning Fork.”
    “Oh… right.”
    Relieved, Cass stood up, gripping the Tuning Fork file tight in her hand.
    She tried to sound casual: “So where do you think it could be, anyway?”
    “The Tuning Fork? No idea. If I had, I’d be rich. Or dead.” Mr. Wallace leaned in toward the kids. “But between you and me, I’ve always had a hunch it’s somewhere close…”
    The way Mr. Wallace said close, it almost seemed the word meant something sinister—as if the Tuning Fork might be haunting them at the very moment.
    “You mean near… here?” asked Yo-Yoji.
    Mr. Wallace nodded, taking the file from Cass’s hand without asking. “We know the fork made its way to Europe with Brother Rafael. And from what I can tell, it crossed the Atlantic again a hundred years later. Possibly on the Mayflower. Or soon thereafter.”
    He put the file back in its drawer, which he closed, Cass noticed, with an air of finality. They wouldn’t be opening it again anytime soon.
    “You mean like with the Puritans?” asked Max-Ernest.
    Mr. Wallace shrugged. “Of course this is all speculation… but did you know that along with all the Puritans, there were also witches banished to the New World?”
    “So you think a… witch had it?” Cass could hardly believe they were using the word seriously. But over the past couple years, she’d learned not to discount anything—even the supernatural.
    “Well, a woman believed to be a witch anyway.” Mr. Wallace smiled—an occurrence so rare as to be nearly supernatural in itself. “All those stories about witches feeding children candy have to come from somewhere, don’t they? And I did read a report once about a witch named Clara who was famous for her frothy cups of hot