Read Online Aesop's Secret by Claudia White - Free Book Online Page A

but, as you can see, they weren’t.”
    Harmony glanced at him briefly. “What happened to bring you back to being you?”
    Joe shrugged. “Science is your field, not mine —maybe you can tell me.”
    Harmony smiled. “I’ll work on it.” She thought for a minute, then looked nervously at her uncle. “Do you think that Mulligan is involved?”
    Joe shook his head. “No, Horace hates humans as much as he doesn’t care for Athenites who might upset his cozy little setup. The man has made his fortune by using his abilities to manipulate people. Mulligan has never represented a threat and has been a useful source of information because of his scientific and business connections.
    “I became a threat when I discovered those hieroglyphs in Turkey,” Joe explained. “Those writings could not only prove our ancestral existence, but also prove Athenites had once lived openly in human society. Disclosing that to the world would have changed the course of history, taking mythology out of fantasyland.”
    Harmony looked baffled. “I don’t understand why Horace would be so opposed to the idea. What difference would it make to him?”
    “Horace has only been interested in two things since leaving university,” Joe snarled. “Power and money. Two things that he has attained only because of his Athenite abilities.”
    “I still don’t understand,” Harmony said.
    Joe leaned his head back against the seat and sighed. “Horace is fortunate to have the same talent that you have in your ability to understand all animal languages. You are not able to transform, but you can still call upon animal strengths, as well as communicate with any species at any time. Horace has that gift of communication too, and he can transform. For more than twenty years he has used both of those talents to make himself very rich. He would first transform into something most people might not notice, like a fly, then he would sneak into a meeting where important confidential information was being discussed about what businesses were up to. He used that information to choose his investments in the stock market, which made him an absolute fortune. That type of activity is considered highly illegal, and if the authorities ever found out that’s how he made his money, not only would his personal wealth be wiped out but he could go to prison for a very long time.”
    Harmony nodded, then shook her head. “Just because people would know about Athenites would not necessarily mean that everyone would have to live openly. After all, we don’t even know who is and who isn’t an Athenite.”
    Joe glanced out of the window at the people on the sidewalks and wondered how many of them might be Athenites. “There are some that can tell an Athenite from a human just by looking into their eyes. In an open civilization where Athenites were accepted and recognized as real members of society, it wouldn’t take long to discover who is and who isn’t an Athenite. As far as I know, no one in our family has had that kind of recognition power, but some, like Horace, do. I feel quite confident that he knows about the Huttons.”
    Harmony slammed on the breaks, causing the car in back of her to swerve and honk loudly. “The Huttons are Athenites?”
    Joe grabbed hold of the dashboard to steady himself. “That is precisely why he is so interested in young Felix.”
    Several more cars angrily tooted their horns until Harmony accelerated again. “Felix is brilliant and Horace is always excited about bright kids that can attend the school.”
    Joe shook his head. “That’s only partly true. Horace has always kept an eye out for exceptionally bright science scholars because he doesn’t want them to discover that metamorphosis is a very real scientific possibility. If one of them is an Athenite, how long do you think it would take them to discover the scientific explanation for our existence?”
    “Felix did seem interested in the Spadefoot Toad.” Harmony pulled