“Did you know that every harp has a twin, cut from the same piece of wood?” Great-Uncle Thorne asked them.
But it seemed to Felix to be a rhetorical question, so he didn’t respond.
“Hey!” Maisie said, pointing to an oval painting on the south wall. “That’s from the Palazzo Medici!”
“So it is,” Great-Uncle Thorne said with a chuckle. “My sister would be pleased that you are finally learning some culture.”
He moved slowly to the opposite wall.
On it were four large jewels.
“Are those real?” Maisie asked him.
Great-Uncle Thorne touched them in turn, saying what each was as he did.
“Emerald. Ruby. Sapphire. Diamond.”
He kept his hand on the diamond and gently turned it until that part of the wall creaked open.
“It’s a door!” Felix said.
“The door to the Fairy Room,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, stepping inside.
Maise and Felix followed him, gasping as they entered.
The room was tiny, its walls covered with real ivy and pink and blue morning glories. The ceiling was covered in angel hair dotted with tiny twinkling white lights.
“The floor is made of grass!” Maisie exclaimed.
All of the furniture—which wasn’t very much—glittered with gold.
There was a small love seat, and on that love seat sat the Ziff twins.
Rayne and Hadley jumped to their feet as soon as they saw Maisie and Felix.
“Isn’t this room the most wonderful place you’ve ever seen?” Rayne said, giddy.
“My mother built this for the fairies,” Great-Uncle Thorne explained.
“Fairies,” Maisie said.
“Yes,” Great-Uncle Thorne explained. “In Victorian times, people—including my mother—were fascinated with fairies and their lore. Some—also perhaps including my mother—claimed to see them. She built this room for them, putting all of their favorite things in it.”
“So they just flap their wings and fly in and out of here?” Maisie said sarcastically.
“Actually,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, “fairies don’t have wings. They fly by magic. That is, if you believe in that sort of thing. As I said, many people in the Victorian era did.”
“Is that why we’re all here?” Felix asked.
“Not at all,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “I just wanted the most private place for us to meet and finally let the Ziff twins, here, tell us what happened when they found Amy Pickworth.”
Hadley began to talk right away.
“We saw her that very next day. She had on real bush gear. You know, khaki pants and a jacket with all these pockets and a big hat with, like, a veil over her face.”
“To keep out the mosquitoes,” Rayne explained.
“As we approached, she looked up from her work—”
“She was very engrossed in it, drawing a map of some kind—”
“—and she said, simply, ‘You’ve come.’”
“We didn’t know what to answer,” Rayne said.
“She did ask us what year we’d come from—”
“—and when we told her, she got so excited!”
“She couldn’t believe it was the twenty-first century,” Hadley added.
“She asked about her children, and about Phinneas, and about history, too,” Rayne said, her words spilling out rapidly.
“Who was president and what had happened in a lot of countries and with a lot of people I’d never heard of,” Hadley continued.
“And then she said, ‘It’s time.’”
Maisie frowned. “It’s time? That was her message?”
Rayne shook her head. “No. I asked her, ‘Time for what?’”
“And she said,” Hadley finished, “‘Why, time to open the egg.’”
“The missing egg!” Felix said.
“She took the map we had, the one from The Treasure Chest, and then we were back,” Rayne explained.
Maisie and Felix looked at Great-Uncle Thorne.
He stood tall, not at all bent or crooked, his eyes gleaming.
“Children,” he said, “it’s time to open the egg.”
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Born: April 15, 1452
Died: May 2, 1519
Leonardo da Vinci was born in the town of Vinci in the Republic of Florence, which is now part of the country of Italy. At the time, Italy was not united and was made up of many city-states, or republics. It was customary for people to take the name of their birth city, which is why Leonardo was known as da Vinci—Leonardo from Vinci. Little is known of Leonardo’s early life. His parents never married because they were from different economic and social classes. His mother was a peasant, possibly even a servant (though no one knows for sure). His father was a notary, which was similar to a lawyer. Leonardo lived with his mother until he was five and then moved to his father’s family farm. Eventually, both of his parents married other people and had other children, giving Leonardo seventeen half brothers and sisters!