Treasure Box Page 0,111

lay on the seat beside Ray. Quentin remembered what Mrs. Tyler's note said. Don't let it touch his skin. Maybe he shouldn't open the treasure box with bare hands.

"You going to need those gloves for the next little while?" asked Quentin.

Ray looked down as if noticing them for the first time. "No, you need them? Go right ahead." He handed the gloves through the window. "Got climate control in here, but I bet the house is an iceberg."

The house is whatever your daughter decides it is. "Thanks, Ray."

He heard the window rolling up behind him as he walked around the car and up the stairs.

Roz and Rowena were waiting for him on chairs in the entry hall. Rowena sat like a lady; Roz had her feet up over the arm of the chair. "Took you long enough," said Roz. "You flew and we got here first."

"Didn't know it was a race," said Quentin. To Rowena he said, "Hope you didn't have any trouble getting in. But of course you have a key."

"No, we don't," said Rowena. "The door was open."

"Chief Bolt locked it when we left here the other day."

Roz sighed. "Why are we discussing locks and keys?"

"Because, as your mother will tell you, the thing inside that box is stronger than you think," said Quentin. "Don't open it, Roz."

"I'm not going to. You are." Roz grinned saucily.

"Haven't you explained it to her, Rowena?" said Quentin. "That thing is supposedly trapped inside the box, but still it has power enough seeping out to lock and unlock doors. It's not like you. It has the power to make changes in the physical world. It's so far out of your league that it's insane of you to think you can control it."

Roz got up and started skipping around the room. "Grown-up talk. It's a good thing for you I need you to be free. When my parents lecture like this, I shut them up. I feel sorry for other kids who have to listen."

"Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe the beast is deceiving you as surely as you deceived me? 'Come on, it's not so strong, you can control it, you can ride this horse,' just a bunch of lies to fool you into doing what it can't do for itself - break your grandmother's seal and get out?"

"No, Quentin. Stupid impossible ideas don't occur to me." She looked down at his hands. "You won't need those gloves."

"It's cold in here."

"How stupid do you think I am? I said, you won't need those gloves!" Her face grew nasty and dangerous-looking, filled with rage.

"I think I do," said Quentin.

She transformed before his eyes into a monstrous travesty of a woman, long nails reaching for him, sharp teeth brandished in his face. "Take off the gloves," hissed the monster's voice. "Nothing will happen until you do. Lizzy won't be free until you do."

It was no good. She could find even the most pathetic sort of plan in his mind. Quentin pulled off the gloves.

"Nice to see you for a moment without the cute façade," he said. Immediately Roz returned to her little-girl self.

"Ha ha, break my heart," she retorted. "And don't think I'm not perfectly aware of Grandmother's pathetic attempt to thwart me. I've taken care of her already."

Quentin felt sick at heart. He'd been right about not having a plan, because whatever fragments of a plan had occurred to him or to Mrs. Tyler had been foreseen and forestalled. Poor Mrs. Tyler. Did Roz mean the old lady had been pinned down to her bed again? Or worse? Could Roz really make her mother's poor thrall commit murder?

"I could make him bite his own feet off," said Roz. "The only reason I don't do it with you is because the dragon won't ride in you if you aren't free."

"Let's do it," said Quentin.

As if in answer to him, the door to the parlor flew open, slamming against the wall. For a moment Roz looked startled, nervous. Then she turned back to him and grinned at him. "The steed may buck, but in his heart he still wants to be ridden."

"That may be the stupidest thing ever said by anybody," said Quentin.

"Say what you want, Quentin. I won't have to hear it much longer."

"Where's Lizzy?" asked Quentin.

"Out in the car. As soon as we finish, I'll set her free."

"What if you're wrong? What if you lose your gamble in there?"

"Then it won't matter much what happens to Lizzy, will it?"

"I'm not doing it