Force of Nature ▸ House of Anubis [3]

chapter seventeen. house of trickery

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            "You guys didn't find Amber?" KT asks when she sees us return to the lounge without our blonde fashion-obsessed friend in tow. I shake my head, heavily sighing.

            "We searched the entire gatehouse," Fabian answers. "Nothing."

            "Unless there's some sort of secret hidey lair thing," Alfie remarks.

            "You guys, this is bad, really bad," KT tells us, like we don't already know how bad this is. "What did Miss Denby do with Amber?"

            "I think we need to tell Sweet now," I suggest decisively. It's what we agreed we would do if we couldn't find her at the gatehouse, which we didn't. Time to tell an adult. "This has gone on way too long."

            "And Amber's dad, too," Alfie adds.

            Fabian looks at us and sighs quietly. "Okay, let's go."

            KT doesn't follow us out into the hallway, in the direction of Sweet's office to tell him what happened. On the way there, we run into Amber's dad and Fabian says immediately to him, "Mr. Millington, it's about Amber."

            "She's gone missing," Alfie tells him. A bit more blunt than we probably should've gone with, considering this is her dad we're speaking to right now. "We haven't seen her since yesterday."

            "What?" Mr. Millington asks.

            Pointedly, Patricia says to Alfie, "You could've led up to that, Alfie."

            Sweet comes out of his office, starting, "Mr. Millington—"

            "Apparently," Mr. Millington says, turning to face him, "Amber's gone missing."

            "Well, not missing exactly. I mean, I know where she is," Sweet replies. Whoa, what? What's he talking about? "She's over at the gatehouse with Miss Denby. It's fine. I'm going over there now to sort everything out. Everything's fine."

            As we glance at each other confused, Mr. Millington retorts, "Well, it doesn't sound fine. First she's sick, then she's missing. Now she's holed up in some gatehouse. I'm going to come with you."

            "No," Sweet states. "No, there's really no need."

            Mr. Millington takes an almost threatening step towards him. "Mr. Sweet, are you refusing to let me see my own daughter?"

            "Well..." Sweet stammers. "Please, follow me."

            Sweet opens the door for Amber's dad to go through as Patricia asks us quietly, "What is going on?"

            I shrug without an answer, as confused as she is. Fabian says, watching the two men leave, "I don't know."

—

            Alfie runs in front of us, telling us desperately, "Come on, guys, we need to follow Sweet and Millington."

            "Sweet was acting weird," Fabian comments. I nod. That was strange even for Sweetie. "Something's definitely not right."

            "What if Victor's at the gatehouse right now," Patricia says, "him and Denby?"

            "If Victor and Denby are both there, that's even more reason to go," I agree with Alfie. Victor with the evil past/probably-present-too and the teacher whose house Amber was caught in? That is not a good mixture.

            "Is it?" Patricia asks. "But think about it. No one is going to hurt Amber while her dad's there."

            "I don't know," Alfie says, "but we should follow them anyway."

            I sigh, reluctantly conceding, "Alfie, she may have a point. You saw Mr. Millington when we told him. If he's there she'll be fine."

            Patricia nods. "I know you're upset. I mean, we all are. But if we get caught following Sweet, then this whole thing is over. Victor will know we're onto him."

            "But—" Alfie starts.

            "Patricia's right," Fabian says. "We have to wait. Amber's dad will bring her back here. And then we'll know what went on."

            "We tough it out," Patricia adds, "act like everything's normal. Come on, Alfie, you can do this."

            I nod, grabbing the hood of Alfie's dog costume and pulling it over his head. "Come on, Fido."

            Alfie doesn't even respond. He just nods.

—

            We all went back to our respective projects, but the air is tenser than it was when we left. In my head, I go over what we know about whatever's going on with Anubis House this term, trying to understand where we're heading with all this and what's happened already.

            First: Alfie stole a package that belonged to Victor and passed it off as his present to Amber for her birthday. Inside that package was a clunky, antique Egyptian bracelet and an aged parchment with hieroglyphs on one side and the words KEEPER, SEEKER, and ENABLER on the other.

            Second: we managed to translate the hieroglyphs—not that it helped a lot. When the dark son is born in the English sky, and children of children sleep the day by, give the loop of fire to the sleeping man, and the dark son of Egypt will rise again. It doesn't make any sense. What does it mean?

            Third: one of the hieroglyphs led us to the gatehouse—the one Miss Denby lives in. We went there, snooped around, but she came home early and so we got out of dodge, but we didn't know that Amber didn't follow us out. We searched almost every inch of that gatehouse, and we couldn't find her. And then when we finally tell an adult, Sweet says that Amber is safe with Denby at the aforementioned gatehouse.

            Where was she hiding that we couldn't find her when we were there?

            "Everyone." I look up when I hear Sweet's voice. He claps his hands together, Mr. Millington and Miss Denby following behind him. But no Amber. Okay, I'm back to the worrying. "May I have your attention, please? Now, I know you must all be concerned about Amber. Well, after an unfortunate sleepwalking incident," I glance at Alfie hearing the 'explanation' for her absence, "she is now resting safely at Miss Denby's house."

            "She's fine," Mr. Millington adds. "There's nothing to worry about."

            "Says you," I mutter, my eyes falling on Denby, who looks satisfied with herself. I grab Alfie's arm, pulling him over to Patricia and Fabian to talk about this. "Sleepwalking? That's news to me."

            "Why did she lie to her own dad?" Alfie adds.

            "Look," Fabian says, lowering his voice, "all I do know is how badly Victor wants that bracelet. We have to get back to the gatehouse before he hurts Amber."

            "Yeah," Patricia asks, "but how without them noticing us?"