Angel of the Battlefield Read Online Free PDF

stared at the lush rug—which the Woman in Pink had said was handwoven by a blind family in Persia. But there was nothing there except the rug’s intricate pattern of birds and vines. Not one piece of porcelain remained as if it had all been swept up and put away.
    â€œHow strange,” the Woman in Pink said. She went right to the spot where the shards had been and dropped to her knees, running her hands carefully over the carpet. “Maybe the cleaning staff . . . ,” she began, but trailed off.
    â€œWas there really something broken there?” Felix asked in a small voice.
    The Woman in Pink stood, smoothing her pink skirt. “Obviously the preservation society got my message and sent the cleaners over. Why, they’re probably trying to piece it back together as we speak.”
    Maisie placed her hand in her pocket and fingered the smooth shard there.
    â€œSo. Where were we? Ah, yes. As you may know,” the Woman in Pink trilled, “Phinneas Pickworth was a rascal. He was an adventurer, a collector, a lover of magic and practical jokes.”
    The Woman in Pink touched the wall with the special French Louis-the-somebody’s green-and-gold paneling. It was the very spot where Maisie had hoped to find something extraordinary when the vase broke. Like magic, the wall opened to reveal a staircase.
    â€œWhat in the world . . . ?” Maisie said, jumping back slightly.
    Felix gasped. “A hidden stairway!”
    â€œOh!” Maisie said. “This is absolutely incredible!”
    â€œMaybe the coolest thing ever,” Felix said.
    â€œWhere did the wall go?” Maisie said, running her fingers along the edges where the wall had just been. That broken vase
had
left a trail, right to here. Something special waited at the top of those stairs, Maisie was certain of it.
    â€œAs you can see, this section of the wall spins into this recessed part here,” the Woman in Pink began to explain.
    Without hesitating, Maisie started up the stairs.
    â€œNo, no, no! The Treasure Chest is
off-limits
,” the Woman in Pink said in her fluttery voice, teetering after Maisie in her pink high heels.
    That really piqued Maisie’s interest. “The Treasure Chest?” she said, stopping midway up. “Is that what’s up here?”
    Maisie didn’t wait for an answer. Treasure chests held gold and jewels and all sorts of interesting things. She quickly climbed up the rest of the stairs, disappearing at the top.
    â€œOh, dear,” the Woman in Pink said. She looked helplessly at Felix. “The Treasure Chest is most absolutely off-limits.”
    Felix nodded at her, his stomach sinking with every syllable she spoke.
Off-limits
was just fine with him. Now the Woman in Pink disappeared upstairs, too. With a sigh, Felix followed.
    At the top, Maisie stood with her body pressed against the red velvet rope that stretched across the doorway of a large room filled floor to ceiling with . . . more stuff than Felix had ever seen all in one place. He blinked, trying to take in what he was looking at.
    â€œWhat is all this stuff?” he asked.
    Peacock feathers jutted from carved wooden boxes. Seashells lay on weathered bones. Test tubes shone beside parchment paper, which rested on top of faded fabric that partially covered a chest of old tools nestled beside pieces of jade. And that was just what he saw at first glance. The harder he stared, the more objects he could make out: maps and bows and a compass and a wheel of some kind; antlers and maybe real jewels and an inkwell with a feathered pen in it and—
    â€œHow can this be?” Maisie said, startled.
    She pushed Felix aside and started to unhook the rope. Right there, in the middle of all that stuff, on an ornately carved pedestal, sat a huge blue-and-white porcelain vase.
    But the Woman in Pink grabbed her elbow and yanked her away.
    â€œ
Off-limits
,” she