Chapter 1 The Holland Tunnel October arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, with bright blue skies, puffy white clouds, and perfect, cool autumn temperatures. The leaves on the trees along Bellevue Avenue began to turn red and gold and orange, and the tourists who clogged the streets all summer were gone, taking with them the traffic and crowds. For most children, October in Newport was idyllic. But not for Maisie and Felix Robbins. They wanted to be back in New York City, in their apartment at 10 Bethune Street, with their parents still married and their lives the way they had been before the divorce six months earlier had changed everything. That was why early on that beautiful October morning, when other children were down the road playing softball or out on the bay sailing or with their families buying apples and pumpkins in nearby Tiverton, Maisie and Felix sneaked down on the dumbwaiter from their -third--floor apartment where they lived and into Elm Medona. The seventy-room mansion had been built by their great-great-grandfather Phinneas Pickworth and was filled with tapestries from the Middle Ages, marble fireplaces imported from France, ceilings trimmed with real gold leaf, and the Pickworth symbols of peonies, peacocks, and pineapples painted and carved and etched into every inch of wood, canvas, and silk. Elm Medona technically belonged to the local preservation society now, but family members could still live in the apartment included on the grounds.
The mansion had a room called The Treasure Chest, and in that room, stacked and nestled and leaning against one another, were artifacts and curiosities of all kinds: feathers, seashells, rocks; wands and sticks and canes; pieces of glass and string and paper; sealing wax, fountain pens, scales, compasses, tarnished silverware, dried watercolors, maps. The items in The Treasure Chest appeared to be limitless. Everywhere Maisie and Felix looked, they found yet another thing that caught their attention. A few weeks earlier, they had gone into The Treasure Chest and found a letter with a list of names on it. Somehow, that letter brought them back in time to Clara Barton''s farm in Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1836. Even though they had spent the night there, when they returned it seemed like little time had passed at all. Although they weren''t sure how they actually time -traveled---or how they got -back---what Maisie and Felix wanted was to do it again. But with a new school and so many new things to think about, they couldn''t find the right time to go to The Treasure Chest.
And this time they wanted to go back six months and land in their old beds in New York City. Even though it was a Saturday, their mother had gone to work at the law office. Back in New York, she had spent three years going to NYU Law School, giving up her dream of becoming an actress and starring in a Broadway musical. Now she had her chance to prove herself. Fishbaum and Fishbaum was one of the oldest law firms in Newport, and their mother felt lucky to have this job. As a result, she had prepared them that she would work long hours and weekends. She had to. They waited for her to leave, then met in the hallway between their rooms.
The apartment where they lived was the former servants'' quarters, but it was easy to get into the mansion below and go unnoticed. The -century--old house was so big that when they went there alone at night, their voices echoed and their footsteps seemed to thunder as they walked across the vast marble floors. Just like the last time, Felix climbed into the dumbwaiter in the kitchen and let Maisie send it down into the mansion''s basement. This time, though, he wasn''t at all afraid. Instead, he concentrated on their mission. Last night, their father had called from Doha, Qatar, where he''d gone to work at a new art museum, and the sound of his voice had made Felix''s chest ache in such a way that he wondered if he might be actually having a heart attack. He didn''t think kids had heart attacks, but Felix found himself gasping for air as his chest tightened, all the while his father described the compound where he lived and the camel market and the sand dunes that sung. When his father hung up, Felix found himself even more certain that The Treasure Chest had to bring him and Maisie back to their small apartment in New York City, back to where they all belonged.
Now, he wrapped his arms around himself like a hug as the dumbwaiter creaked downward. He closed his eyes and imagined their old block with the supermarket on one corner and the diner that his father said had the worst coffee in New York City on the other. He pictured the long corridor that led to their apartment, the row of locks that lined their front door, the way the lights in the small foyer came on as soon as someone stepped inside. Maisie''s voice interrupted his concentration. "Are you going to live in there or something?" Felix opened his eyes. The dumbwaiter had come to a stop. Out its small window, the white-tiled Kitchen gleamed at him. A mantra, Felix decided.
He needed a mantra to keep himself focused. " Home ," he whispered to himself. Home . He repeated it as he pushed open the door and waited for Maisie to join him. Home . Home . "Home?" Maisie said, peering into his face. Like the last time, she had followed him down in the dumbwaiter.
She stood three inches taller than her twin brother and had a way of looking down at Felix that made her seem powerful. "My mantra," Felix explained. Maisie considered the idea. "That''s good," she said finally. "But do you think we should be more specific? Like, repeat our address or something?" Felix shrugged. " Home just feels right," he said. She grinned at him. " Home it is then, little brother.
" At seven minutes older, Maisie liked to remind Felix at every opportunity who was born first. They walked up the stairs and into the Grand Ballroom, both of them whispering home , home , home over and over. The early morning sun came through the stained-glass window at the landing of the stairs, sending blue and gold light onto the polished marble floor. "It looks different in daytime," Maisie said, pausing to look up at the window with its peacock pattern. Felix stopped, too, following her gaze. "Pretty," she said. "Phinneas Pickworth commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany to make this window for Elm Medona," Felix said in a deep voice, reciting the words the Woman in Pink had told them when they''d taken a tour of the mansion. The local preservation society had arranged a VIP tour for them with a special guide, even though Maisie and Felix quickly forgot her name and called her the Woman in Pink because she was covered in the color from head to toe.
She had led them through every room, giving excruciating details about everything in them. "Notice how his favorite symbols are incorporated in the window. The -peacock---" "The pineapple," Maisie added. "And the peony," Felix said. "How posh!" Maisie giggled. They both laughed and continued across the ballroom to the Grand Staircase, Maisie''s arm hooked into Felix''s. Halfway up they paused again, this time to look at the -black--and--white picture of their -Great--Aunt Maisie and her twin brother, Thorne, as children. They had grown up here at Elm Medona.
-Great--Aunt Maisie had lived in the servants'' quarters on the third floor until she''d had her stroke and moved into an assisted living facility. They both peered at the -mischievous--looking boy in the picture, with a prominent cowlick and slightly too large ears. "No one ever mentions him," Maisie said. Felix shivered inexplicably. "I -wonder---" Maisie began. But Felix interrupted her. "Remember our mantra?" he said. "If we lose our focus, we could end up who knows where.
" "Right," Maisie said. They continued up the stairs. At the top, Maisie gently ran her hand along the green wall until she felt the spot to gently push. The wall opened and slowly spun to reveal the hidden staircase that led to The Treasure Chest. Even though they had done this very thing before, Felix couldn''t help but gasp. A secret staircase! Hidden behind a door! "Should I go up alone, like last time?" Maisie said. When they''d traveled to the Barton farm in 1836, Maisie and Felix had repeated everything exactly as the first time they''d sneaked inside. That first time they''d realized the power of The Treasure Chest, something mysterious and terrifying and thrilling had started to happen: Loud noises and the smell of gunpowder had filled the room, and suddenly Maisie and Felix had found themselves lifting off the ground.
But then their mother had arrived home, startling them enough to stay in place. When they tried again a few days later, they''d been careful to repeat everything they''d done and said. "I don''t think so," Felix said. "I think we can both go inside and choose an object and see what happens." "That seems too easy," Maisie said. "Well," Felix said thoughtfully, "we''ll need to find something that looks like it belongs in New York, I think." Maisie shook her head. "There must be more to it than that.
" "Let''s try it this way," Felix said. "Okay," Maisie said reluctantly. That decided, they climbed the secret staircase and went directly to The Treasure Chest. Maisie unclipped the red ve.