BEGINNING
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them, it was still the same: corridor after corridor, leading to places that seemed to have no end, places she was not quite sure she'd ever gone to. It was funny how it all made sense when you were walking through them to your destination. It wasn't so funny when you turned around and found out that the walls and doors had somehow rearranged themselves while you weren't looking.
Living here for close to three months had not changed anything. No matter how many times she explored the house, no matter how she tried to memorize which led to which, she couldn't quite remember any of them when she went through the routes again. She had only gotten confused. It had been easy for Dan. It wasn't as easy for her – she dealt with encyclopedias and information, not mapping or memorization.
Grace used to be a cartographer. They'd had the same blood, shared the same genes. But Amy hadn't inherited Grace's wanderlust. Or maybe she had, just not the skills that came along with being a world traveler.
She sighed. Was she supposed to go down the left hallway or the right hallway?
Her phone began to sing, a silly song about raindrops turning to lemon drops and gumdrops. Amy frowned. It had been standard ringtone yesterday. Dan had probably changed it while she was asleep. Amy took it out and flipped it open, Nellie's name flickering on the screen. She hit 'Answer'.
"Where are you, kiddo?" Nellie asked. "Did you get lost again?"
"Um," Amy said, buying time. She didn't want to admit it, but she also knew that the sooner she confessed, the sooner she would get out of being stuck in one place. "Well…"
"Yeah, you did," Nellie concluded. "Tell me, where exactly are you?"
A pause.
"The description, then," she amended.
"I'm in a hallway with red carpeting and cream walls. There are tapestries and vases, lots of doors…"
"You'll be in the south wing. Stay there." The call ended, and Amy slipped to the floor.
What else could she do? It was actually embarrassing to think that though she and her brother technically owned this house – she would not think of its size or its grandeur – Nellie still knew it better than she did. Amy wished that she had at least imbibed some of her grandmother's talents. She wanted to be an archaeologist someday; how would that work if she couldn't find her way through her own house? She would be trapped underground, surrounded by golden tombstones and embalmed bodies. Succumbing to the dust because of lack of oxygen, where some poor sap would find her body centuries later…
Her gaze landed on a vivid painting by one of her Janus cousins. A Rembrandt, or so the seller had said. They'd had it appraised and checked for authenticity, and it had been confirmed as real. She didn't want to think of the money it cost to buy this painting; she didn't want to remember that the money came from the Cahill family's huge reserves. It was too much to dwell on: Power, fame, wealth. Three things that had fallen into their hands when they'd won the Hunt.
It didn't make anything easier. But now they were ensconced in one of Grace's estates peppered all over the world, forever sought by inquisitive paparazzi, harassed by their relatives every waking moment of their lives. It was surprising – and often ridiculous – how the world would go wild over Dan recovering his precious baseball cards. Or when Amy stepped out to buy a book; she'd done that once, and the book was on The New York Times Bestseller List the next day. Her relatives had hounded them, sending threats and blackmail letters every day. Sometimes, Amy wondered if it had been the right thing to do.
She shook her head. Of courseit had been the right thing to do. This was for Grace. For their parents. For Dan and herself. For Uncle Fiske himself, who had helped them so much. For everyone else, the world, who depended on them.
"Hey, kiddo."
"I'm seventeen, Nellie. I don't qualify as 'kiddo' since…well, since a decade or so ago."
Nellie grinned. With her were Fiske and Dan. The old man was busy inspecting the furniture, running a figure on the surfaces, and discovering at least three layers of dust in the process. Dan was opening door after door.
She hadn't expected the three of them to come and fetch her. It only heightened her sense of humiliation. Trying to keep her cool, Amy said, "Uh…Hi? Did something happen?"
All three exchanged glances. Amy raised an eyebrow as she stood up.
"Okay, I know I'm missing something, and you guys don't have to do the creepy looks," she said.
Nellie grasped her wrist gently. "Let's go to the living room."
"Oh, and by the way Amy, I am installing a GPS program into your cell phone corresponding to the house's layout so that you won't go wandering around," Fiske added.
"Install one on mine, too," Dan told him. "All I know is the way to the dining room, the kitchen, my own room, the lawns and backyards, and the arcade room."
Fiske smiled. "Sure." A second later, though, the smile faded, replaced by a sober expression. He wiped the finger he'd used for the inspection on his black slacks. There was something he was keeping. Amy could almost feel the secret whispering to them. It was not unnatural for their guardians to keep secrets, but she always wished that she and Dan knew, too.
She looked at Dan. What's going on?
I don't know either, his green eyes responded.
The TV was tuned in to the news when they arrived at the living room.
"Watch this," Fiske told them, his tone grim. Amy and Dan sat down on the sofa while Nellie walked out into the veranda, cell phone pressed to her ear, frowning. Fiske turned up the volume on the television, reaching a 69 before he stopped.
"…devastating earthquakes have been affecting China since yesterday. Forest fires have spread in California. A tsunami has recently…"
Amy and Dan watched, growing puzzled. Why exactly was this being shown to them? And it all seemed unbelievable, the death toll, the destruction. There was a city in ruins, where only bricks and cement survived the earthquake. A mountain left scalped and smoking by flames.
Amy licked her lips, a thousand thoughts crossing her mind, unsure of which one she would voice out. "Global warming?"
A curious sound escaped Fiske's lips. Somewhere between a choke and a barely-suppressed laugh. "It isn't something as trivial as that, Amy. This is no natural phenomena."
"Of course it isn't," Nellie chimed in, returning from the veranda. "Natural phenomena don't suddenly appear out of nowhere. And never on such a grand scale. No, some other force is at work here."
The calmness and logic of Nellie didn't surprise Amy anymore. Ever since she found out that Nellie had been specifically hired by Grace through Mr. McIntyre in order to help them out with the Clue Hunt, she and Dan had learned to trust in her judgments.
"Have you contacted them for any information they might have?" Fiske asked.
"Yes. Aside from the statistics, there is a slight hunch on who the perpetrators of these events might be," Nellie replied.
"I don't want statistics and I don't want hunches. The statistics are all over the news. I want solid facts, what will happen next - "
"Freeze!" Amy exclaimed, holding up a hand. Fiske stopped. "Thank you. Now, what exactly is going on?"
"Yeah, I want to know, too," Dan said.
Nellie gestured at the news. "Calamities. Increased death tolls. Somebody is bent on destroying the-"
"Wait a moment," Dan interrupted. "Somebody?Calamities are classified under Natural Phenomena for a reason! I mean, they're caused by nature!"
"Exactly," Amy said, for once not at odds with her brother. But that was only because he was making sense this time.
"Yes, they are," Nellie said. "But these aren't just ordinary occurrences. Amy, tell me, when have you ever seen so many disasters erupt at different areas at the same time?"
Amy had to think about it for a moment. "Never."
"But…but that's ridiculous!" Dan spluttered. "If someone was causing all this, they would need to have really advanced technology."
"Much as I hate to say it, I agree. They would have to develop extremely enhanced equipment that could penetrate the crust and withstand the heat as well as the pressure, not to mention other factors which would invariably cost them billions – no, trillions. Scratch that, probably even zillions. And it's not even just the money but the concepts of these designs, which are hard to reproduce. It takes years!" Amy said, ever the aspiring scientist. All that time with her nose buried in scientific journals weren't for nothing.
Silence.
"Uh, yeah, what she said," Dan seconded.
Nellie closed her eyes and massaged her forehead. "Look, kiddo. I don't know how you knew and where you got all that, but they've been engineering this for years. They have the necessary wealth and the necessary brains. They have the capacity to do anything."
"Who exactly are 'they'?" Amy asked, at the same time that Dan said: "Well, why didn't you stop them? Why didn't anyone stop them?"
"It's not that easy," Fiske stepped in. "You know that there are blacklisted Cahills from time to time, right? They are in this group. They're part of it, which augments the group's resources."
"Big deal! What are a few outcasts compared to us? And that still does not explain anything about them, where they got their wealth."
Nellie looked at Fiske. Fiske looked at Nellie.
"Why is it that every time you look at each other, I feel an impending sense of doom?" Amy said, trying to keep her tone lighthearted. But her eyes were narrowed, her chest tightening. No. Not after what we'd gone through already…
"Amy. Dan. You know that the Cahills are a very powerful, prolific race, right?" Fiske turned the TV off.
They both nodded. "Since day one," Dan reminded him.
"But not everyone is a Cahill. And these people are the greatest rivals of our family."
A heartbeat. A heartbeat that punctuated the moments of their uncertainty.
"Okay, what's the punchline?" Amy said. Please, we've gone through enough. Don't let this be happening…!
Fiske shook his head. "I am afraid there is no punchline, Amy. This other family has been trying to dethrone us for centuries. They were ignored because so many of us were focused on the Clues. Ignored because we mistakenly thought that they would never be able to match us. Ignored because, even then, internal problems of increasing magnitude have been our primary concern."
"And because we chose to overlook them, they have secretly hoarded many vital resources. One of them, Lucius, was the one who presented a plan to the heads. They have been working on it for decades. When the banished Cahills joined them – which were quite a number, especially during a certain event where many agents of different branches were discredited – their force was doubled. Their wealth skyrocketed. But they continued to work underground, so as not to be noticed," Nellie added.
"Who are they?" Amy repeated, dreading what was coming.
"The Sylvianos. The Sylvianos are causing all these upheavals to happen."
AN:
This was written before any mention of the Vespers ever came about. We are sticking to the original plot line: we chose the Sylvianos, it will be the Sylvianos.
I will be collaborating with music4evah and Joelle8 on this one.
Edited as of 12/28/10 due to the author's dissatisfaction with the first chapter.
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39 Clues Fanfic Feature
21 Years by Joelle8
21 Years features Irina/Fiske. Though many would say that it is the first crack!ship, in all actuality, 21 Years is second. However, it does have the distinction of being the first *serious* crack!ship in the fandom. 21 Years is remarkable, in that it delves into the improbable without bordering on the ridiculous. It is a "what if" situation with a touch of realism to it, making the story and interpretation more alive than if it were formulaic. A must-read.
**Historical footnote: If we are to define a crack!ship as a pairing between two people not normally paired together, then the first crack!ship is "Of Gangsters and Librarians", which features Jonah and Amy. However, it was categorized under Humor/Parody; which explains why 21 Years can be considered as the first serious crack!ship.**