When she entered their apartment, Amy Cahill couldn't help it - she laughed.
It was so ironic that her life changed so fast, that her view of the world had expanded so widely, yet when she came back home everything was the same as they left it. Then again, she was glad too - her home in Boston provided her with normalcy. Everything was back to how it used to be, for the time being anyway, but Amy's thoughts kept wandering back to the clue hunt, and being here at home, lying on her own bed, seemed to add to the bizarreness of it all. She wondered if this was all just an extremely weird dream.
Just months ago, Amy and her younger brother Dan had been seated at the funeral of their beloved grandmother, Grace, choosing between joining the hunt for 39 clues or a million dollars check. Amy and Dan knew Grace wanted them to choose the clues, so they sent two million dollars in flames and began the search. Together with their au-pair, Nellie Gomez, and Saladin, Grace's cat, Amy and Dan explored the world gaining clues.
They had learned that their family was the most powerful one in history, with people like Abraham Lincoln in their bloodline, and that the family was divided into four branches: Lucians, notorious for their strategy and ruthlessness; Ekaterina for their intellect and inventiveness; Tomas for their brute strength; and the Janus for their imagination and creativity. Not until later did Amy and Dan finally find their branch of the Cahill family: The Madrigals, the secret fifth branch of the family that stops at nothing to create peace within the warring branches.
Countless times throughout the hunt they'd been betrayed, and saved, and slowly they had changed as well.
It was only two days ago that Amy and Dan had been pronounced the winners of the clue hunt, because out of the eight people in the Madrigal gauntlet, they were the only ones that tried to hold off Isabel Kabra, the most evil woman in the world, instead of chasing after the vial that contained the ingredients to a master serum that made the drinker the most powerful being on Earth. Hamilton Holt, Ian and Natalie Kabra, Sinead Starling, Alistair Oh, and Jonah Wizard had all agreed that they could not be trusted with the clues, so they gave their separate ingredients - the clues their branches worked 500 years to find - to Amy and Dan, which is how Dan with his photographic memory became the sole bearer of the ingredients for the most powerful serum in the world.
The clue hunt was over, so they could go back to their ordinary lives with two million dollars, the prize each of the eight who entered the gauntlet received.
But both Amy and Dan knew this was only a break from something even more significant than the clues. But they could enjoy recess while it lasted. The bell hadn't rung yet.
Amy's thoughts were interrupted by Dan walking into her room. He looked excited with his cell phone in his hand.
"Hamilton called and said they would be back in Wisconsin tomorrow." The Holts had used Hamilton's prize money so the family could go to some big game somewhere.
"He said that the game was super cool! Plus he's going back to school tomorrow, like us, and he's joining a computer club!" Dan looked happy for his cousin. Months ago, he wouldn't have cared.
"Dan tomorrow is important. Could you try not to get in trouble?" Amy looked at her younger brother seriously.
Dan shrugged the question off.
"Dan" Amy pleaded. Dan just handed Amy the rule book for her new high school, which had been in the mail. The book was not in there alone, lot of notes with questions from teachers arrived, each one with the same main idea: Where are you two?
Fiske, their great-uncle, had told Amy and Dan to say they were to say they had been caring for a sick relative.
Even though he wouldn't show it, Amy knew Dan was nervous too. She also knew he was going to get himself in trouble because he was, well, Dan. No matter what happened.
Amy looked out the window of the apartment and smiled again.
It was all so ironic.