Read Online Angel of the Battlefield by Ann Hood - Free Book Online

him made Felix think she knew what they had done. He glanced over at Maisie, but she was pretending to look at the orchids so she didn’t have to look at Great-Aunt Maisie.
    â€œIt’s great,” Felix said.
    â€œHave you been downstairs?”
    â€œDownstairs?” he asked. How could she know?
    â€œThey had a lovely tour,” their mother said.
    â€œHave you been downstairs?” Great-Aunt Maisie asked him again, her eyes never wavering.
    â€œUh. Yeah,” Felix said. He wished Maisie would pay attention, help him out here. She was a good liar when she needed to be.
    Great-Aunt Maisie smiled crookedly. “Yes?” she said.
    â€œThey had a very good tour,” their mother said again, louder this time, even though Great-Aunt Maisie wasn’t at all deaf. “Why don’t we go to the dining room and have some lunch?”
    â€œGood idea,” Maisie said, relieved to get out of the room. She would eat a grilled cheese sandwich and one of those little ice creams that came in a plastic container with its own wooden spoon and be home in no time.
    But Great-Aunt Maisie still held on to Felix’s arm. “Elm Medona,” she said, and it was the clearest thing he’d heard her say since she had the stroke. She nodded at him. “Elm Medona.”

    â€œI’m afraid poor Great-Aunt Maisie is declining,” their mother said in the car after lunch. “She couldn’t understand anything today.”
    Felix disagreed. He thought she was trying to tell him something. But what? Elm Medona. He wrote it with his finger on the leg of his jeans. Why had she repeated it like that? And how had she figured out that they’d gone into the house on their own? She’d grown up there, so it made sense that she knew about whatever happened in The Treasure Chest.
    â€œEarth to Felix,” Maisie was saying. “Now Mom wants to take us shopping for school stuff.”
    Felix groaned.
    â€œPoor Great-Aunt Maisie,” their mother said again, pointing the car toward Warwick and the shopping mall there. “Well, at least she had a very interesting life.”
    Felix caught Maisie’s eye, but she had no idea that Great-Aunt Maisie had been trying to tell him something.
Elm Medona,
he thought. He’d always assumed it was just a particular type of elm tree.
    â€œWhat does it mean?” he asked his mother. “Elm Medona?”
    His mother shrugged. “I have no idea.”
    Maisie looked up, interested. “Why do you want to know all of a sudden?” she asked suspiciously.
    Felix looked out the car window. “Just curious,” he said.

    The next morning, as soon as their mother left for work, Maisie walked into Felix’s room.
    â€œCome on, get up,” she said. “We’re alone at last.”
    â€œI’ve been thinking about it,” he said, already sitting up with a yellow legal pad on his knees. “We have to wait until tonight.”
    â€œGive me a break,” Maisie said. “Your delay tactics are not going to work. I’ve been waiting forever already.”
    Felix shook his head. “No, I promised I’d go back one more time, and I will. But we have to do everything exactly the same, or nothing will happen.”
    â€œAll we need to do is go in there before the first tour starts, and—”
    â€œAnd?” Felix asked.
    â€œI don’t know. But I can’t wait to find out.”
    Felix handed her the pad. “I wrote down everything we did that night so that we can do it the same way.”
    Maisie barely looked at what he’d written. “The first tour is at ten. That gives us almost an hour.”
    â€œI’m telling you, we have to do it at night.” He pointed to number two on his list.
    â€œHave I ever misled you?” Maisie said. She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t answer that.”
    He knew his sister well enough to know that she wouldn’t