The clubhouse door banged shut, driven by a fierce gust of wind. Sharp needles of rain rattled the windows.

“Whew! I think we got here just in time,” Honey noted, brushing small droplets off her clothes and skin. “Remind me to listen, next time Jim says there’s a storm brewing, even if it doesn’t look like it, at the time that he says it.”

Before either Diana or Trixie had time to answer, the door swung open.

“You haven’t got the heater going?” Mart asked as he entered. “What have you been doing?”

“We’ve been here about half a minute longer than you have,” Trixie retorted. “And anyway, do we even need the heater? It’s not all that cold in here, just a bit wet and windy outside.”

“We don’t need the heater,” Brian decided. He closed the door. “Jim and Dan will be here soon. They said they were just going to pick something up.”

Di shivered. “I hope they get here soon. I’m beginning to wish we hadn’t decided to meet here. The living room at Crabapple Farm sounds really cosy right now.”

Since all but the three girls were in college, the seven seldom met at their clubhouse any more. But the circumstance of their all being in Sleepyside on the same weekend had been too good an opportunity to pass up.

The door opened one last time and Jim and Dan entered, carrying an ancient and filthy wooden crate between them.

“What is that, and why are you bringing it in here?” Diana demanded of them. “We girls spent hours cleaning, so it would be nice in here for our meeting, and you’re bringing that?”

“Ah. Sorry.” Dan looked around for something to set the crate down on. “I guess we should have cleaned it up a bit, but we were already late.”

Trixie peered closer, eyes alight with curiosity. “What is it? It looks really old.”

Honey had ducked into the storage area during the discussion and returned with a tarpaulin, which she laid on the floor.

“Put it down on here,” she suggested.

Dan and Jim gratefully lowered their load and dusted off their hands.

“So, what is this? And where did it come from?” Trixie asked. She knelt on the folded edge of the tarpaulin and poked a finger at the dark, wooden shapes she could see inside the crate. “And why is it here?”

“Well, that all depends who you ask.” Dan made a gesture. “According to Grandpa Crimper, it’s a mystery for you to solve. According to anyone else, it’s a load of old junk.”

Trixie’s expression brightened. “I’ll take the mystery explanation.”

“I wouldn’t get too excited.” Jim shook his head. “You know what Grandpa Crimper is like. This is probably just like him owning a jewellery box which once belonged to a President’s wife.”

The old man delighted in telling that story to people. After they viewed the decrepit object and made a guess or two of its origin, he explained that he wasn’t talking about the President of the USA, but of the Sleepyside Businessmen’s Club. He thought it was a great joke.

But Trixie just shrugged the matter off. “He has a different way of looking at things; that’s all.”

“Start at the beginning,” Honey begged her brother. “We can worry about what it means after we’ve got all the facts.”

Jim nodded agreement to the plan. “Well, first, Miss Trask got a call from Grandpa Crimper, to tell her that he wanted the Bob-Whites’ assistance and that someone needed to come and get a very important article right away. So, Dan and I drove over there and found Grandpa Crimper and his son face to face, shouting their heads off.”

“I thought Grandpa was going to deck his son,” Dan commented, shaking his head. “We ran over to them to try to break things up and that’s when things got weird.”

“Weird? What sort of weird?” asked Honey.

Her brother grimaced. “I thought the younger Mr. Crimper was going to deck us. As soon as he saw us, he stopped yelling at his father and started yelling at us, instead. Apparently, we were conspiring about something. But we got him to calm down a little.”

Dan snorted. “Kind of.”

“He stopped yelling, at least.” Jim’s expression turned wry. “Or maybe, we stopped being able to hear him yell. He left us there with his father and went back in the house. And that’s when Grandpa Crimper told us his side of the story. They’re doing some repairs to the house and the workmen opened a space that had been sealed up and found this crate inside.”

“Just like our attic and the letter,” Trixie commented, remembering their subsequent trip to Virginia and the adventure they’d had there. “Except that the Crimper house isn’t anywhere near as old as Crabapple Farm, so it can’t have been there as long. So, what happened next?”

“Well, Mrs. Crimper wanted it out of the house, but Grandpa Crimper told her it was an extremely valuable heirloom that had been in his family for generations and that he’d boxed it in there for safekeeping when they were building the house.” Jim shook his head. “He says he remembers it from his childhood and being told never to touch it, because it was dangerous. That was why, when his own father passed away, he hid it, thinking he’d come back to it sometime later, when he had more time. He also says that the last person to touch it went mad.”

“And so he’s given it to us, so we can go mad?” Di pointed to the door. “Put it out, right now. I don’t care if it gets rained on.”

“Not so fast.” Dan paused a moment. “He also said that the family stories say that there’s more to it than meets the eye. He wanted us to keep this thing safe until he could find a new place to hide it.”

“But what is the mystery?” Mart wondered. “So far, there’s just a few half-remembered stories. It does not sound at all mysterious, to my mind.”

Dan and Jim shared a glance.

“He was a bit vague on that point,” Jim admitted. “But I understood him to mean that he wants us to find out what the item is, what it does, and how to make it stop.”

Trixie leaned down and looked in the crate. She pulled out a book.

“Here’s a good clue,” she told her friends, opening it up. “Or at least it would be, if we could read this handwriting.”

“Ugh! It looks like a spider crawled through ink,” Di commented. “And it’s just as dirty as everything else.”

“Well, the heading says ‘Gateway to Lost Worlds’, but I can’t make head nor tail of what comes after that.” Mart shook his head. “I don’t think this book is going to be much help.”

“Maybe we can figure it out without reading it.” Honey began unloading the crate. “Or, some of us could try to read it while the rest of us see what we can figure out here.”

“I’ll start on the book,” Brian offered.

Honey smiled at him. “Would you? That would be wonderful.”

He sat down at the table with it while the rest of them laid out the items on the tarpaulin, pushing the crate to one corner to give themselves more room. They laid out the items: a ball made of some kind of metal, covering in fine engraving and roughly the size of a grapefruit, and four odd shapes made of dark, polished wood, carved with rough leaf designs.

Trixie poked at one of the wooden pieces. “That looks like it should fit together with something else.”

“How about this piece?” Jim held up another. “I think they could go together.”

For the next several minutes, they all tried aligning the various pieces until all four of the wooden pieces slotted together. It looked a bit like a stand for something, but the metal ball did not seem to fit in the space at the top.

“I think it’s upside-down,” Dan decided, at last.

He and Mart flipped the stand over and the last piece fit into a cavity on what had been the underside, wobbling slightly.

“That kind of looks right, even if it is kind of ugly, but I still have no idea what it is, or does, or anything.” Honey turned to Brian. “Have you found anything yet to tell us what it is?”

He shook his head. “So far, I’ve just got the instructions on how to put it together, but you’ve figured that out for yourselves.”

“Keep reading,” Dan suggested. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere here.”

Trixie, however, ignored the conversation. She had been turning the ball this way and that until it fitted more firmly in the stand.

“There’s something here.” She pointed to a small bump in the middle of the surface now uppermost. “And it looks like a join that goes right past it. And I think, maybe, there’s some words, too.”

She rubbed it with her hand, then jerked away. Inside her head, sparks almost seemed to fly.

Dan’s eyes narrowed. “Something just happened, didn’t it?”

For a moment, Trixie considered how to answer. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, at last.

She leaned in and blew gently on the top, to dislodge the dust. Honey handed her a dry cleaning cloth and Trixie dabbed it on the same spot. Nothing much seemed to happen. She rubbed harder.

“I’m not sure they’re words.” Honey leaned in to look more closely. “They might be symbols, of course, but I think actually they’re just decorations.”

“What’s the thing in the middle?” Di asked, being careful not to touch it. “I thought, for a moment, that it was shiny. Wasn’t there a sort of flash?”

“I didn’t see any lightning.” Mart turned to the window. “I’m pretty sure it’s just rain and not a thunderstorm.”

Di shook her head. “That’s not quite what I meant.”

“Clean that middle part, Trixie,” Honey urged. “I’m sure there’s something there.”

Trixie rubbed it some more, with increasing vigour. The cloth slipped against her skin, and her fingers touched the bump in the centre. This time, they all saw the flash of light that came from it. Trixie dropped the cloth and almost fell over in her haste to move away.

“Did it hurt you?” Brian asked, his voice sharp.

“N-no.” Trixie shook her head. “No, it didn’t hurt. It was just… weird.”

“You don’t think, perhaps, we should read the book before you play with it any more?” he asked, though without much hope of her listening.

Dan looked from the object to Trixie. “What sort of weird?”

She paused to think a moment. “I thought I saw something. A mirrorball.”

“A what?” demanded Mart.

“You know what I mean. Like at a dance or something. A ball covered in little mirrors.”

“Trick of the light,” he replied. “When the lightning flashed, your brain just misinterpreted it.”

Jim shook his head. “There wasn’t any lightning.”

“And I didn’t see it with my eyes,” Trixie explained. “I saw it in my head. And there was more. There was that big statue in Rio de Janeiro, too. I think it’s called Christ the Redeemer.”

Mart stared at her. “Was the statue holding the mirrorball? He’s got his arms stretched out, doesn’t he? He’d need one for each hand.”

“No!” She stopped, frustrated. “It’s hard to describe. I saw kind of a flash and there were all kinds of pictures in it, one after the other. A drive-in. A street in New York City. People and places and things that I know, and ones I don’t. But I could only see little bits of each, almost like they were reflections in all the little mirrors.”

Diana leaned in to look at the object. “Do you think that’s a little piece of mirror? Right there in the middle?”

“It looks smooth and glassy,” Honey observed. “It’s so dirty that it’s hard to tell if it’s a mirror.”

“It looks more like a stone in a ring, to me.” Trixie reached out a hand again, but then changed her mind. “We need something to clean it with.”

Brian cleared his throat. “It’s interesting that you say that.”

She cast him a quizzical look. “That we need to clean it?”

“No, the other part.” He pointed to the book. “If I’m understanding this correctly, you should be able to open that, and I think it might actually be a ring.”

Mart looked from his brother, to the book, to the strange object sitting on the tarpaulin. “So, what you’re saying is that there’s a wooden stand, which holds a metal case, which in turn holds a ring? With the stone protruding slightly? It seems rather overkill, if you ask me. Had they not, by chance, heard of jewellery boxes?”

“And, if that’s what this is, why isn’t it part of Grandpa Crimper’s collection?” Trixie wondered.

“Because it does weird things to your head when you touch it?” Dan suggested.

Trixie stared at it a moment, a thoughtful look on her face, then reached out to touch it again. Dan grabbed her hand before she could reach it.

“Hey! What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Stopping you from touching that thing until Brian’s had time to read the book,” he answered.

“But I’ve got an idea.” She huffed out a sigh. “Fine. I won’t touch it until Brian’s finished. But I don’t think the book is going to tell us what we want to know.”

“I have to agree with you there,” Brian added. “Because I have finished and all I know is how to open it.”

He moved across and looked at it for a moment, then undid a fastening. The two halves of the metal piece slid apart and the ring was revealed. It nestled in faded red velvet, its gold band bright but the stone dulled with dust. Honey gently buffed it with the cleaning cloth, taking care not to let it come in contact with her skin. White fire flashed where the light hit it.

“It reminds me of your great-aunt’s engagement ring,” Trixie noted, to Jim.

He nodded. “Yes, it’s quite similar.”

“Look! There’s something written on the inside of the ball.” Honey leaned over to get a better look. “I think it says, ‘Lost Worlds’, like the book, but I still don’t know what that means.”

Mart leaned around to look from a different angle. “There’s more on the other side: ‘A Glimpse of’.”

“Oh. A glimpse of lost worlds makes more sense than just the lost worlds by themselves,” she answered. “But what are these lost worlds? And how is it giving Trixie a glimpse of them?”

“I’m going to try touching it again,” Trixie decided. “We’re not going to find anything out just by looking at it.”

She reached out a hand and touched her fingertip to the gem. Her eyes widened when she made contact, but this time she kept her finger there for about a minute. Once she pulled away, she slumped back onto her haunches.

“Phew! That was intense.”

“What happened?” Honey demanded. “What did you see this time?”

A faint tinge of pink flushed Trixie’s cheeks. “A few things. People, mostly, this time. There were a few interesting things that I saw. Like Brian meeting Dan’s sister.”

Dan shook his head. “I don’t have a sister.”

“That’s what Brian thought, too, until he met her.”

“No. I really don’t have a sister,” Dan insisted. “Let me have a go at this thing.”

Before anyone could stop him, he pressed a thumb down on the stone. A minute later, he turned to Brian with a very strange look on his face.

“There wasn’t anything I saw about a sister,” he noted, at last. “But what I did see? Man, that’s messed up.”

“You’re directing that comment at me?” Brian asked.

“What I just saw you do…”

Brian stared at him. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve that reaction.”

Dan leaned over and whispered something to him.

“No!” Brian shook his head rapidly back and forth. “No. Definitely not. I would never do that.”

“That’s what I saw.” Dan then turned to Trixie. “And you and my uncle.”

Her brow creased. “What about him?”

“You were together.”

Trixie stared at him. “You saw me and Regan…”

Dan nodded significantly.

“So, what you’re both saying is that you’re seeing things which didn’t happen, but which maybe might have, if things were different from how they are?” Honey asked.

Brian shook his head. “There’s no possibility that I would have an affair with a married woman, and especially not that particular woman. It’s just not something I would do.”

“And the things I saw… well, they couldn’t all be real. I mean, aside from them contradicting each other… well, I just can’t see some of us doing those things. I can’t imagine Jim being uncaring, or easily swayed, or making bad choices just because they’re easy at the time. And I can’t see myself being cold and heartless, even if… well, even if the terrible thing happened that I saw happen.”

“But is this why they’re lost worlds?” Di asked. “Because they couldn’t be real?”

“Some of them, I’m really glad they’re not real,” Trixie commented, with a shudder. “I’m so glad I didn’t have a baby when I was fifteen! And I don’t want any of us to die when we’re young.”

“No, none of us want that,” Honey agreed. “I guess, in a way, we’ve figured out the first part of the problem, so what do we do now? Do we have any idea of how to make it stop showing people whatever it is that it’s showing them?”

“What happens if we take the ring out of there?” Dan asked, reaching forward to do just that. He gave the stone of the ring an experimental poke, then shrugged. “Nothing.”

Trixie took it from him to try for herself, going so far as to try it on. “Okay, so maybe it’s not the ring. What’s underneath the velvet?”

“Are you sure you want to find out?” Brian wondered, even as she picked up the metal part to examine it further.

“I’m not going to touch anything.” She waved off his concern. “I just want to take a look.”

Brian shook his head. “Let’s find some kind of implement to do it with. I don’t want any of us touching whatever is under there.”

Mart found a pencil, which Brian took from him. From arm’s length, he used the point to ease back the edge of the velvet. Light glinted on some shiny surface underneath.

“There’s definitely something under there.” Trixie peered down through the opening. “I guess the ring touches it, whatever it is, and maybe focusses the power?”

“What’s that, on the side?” Di wondered, pointing to what looked like a small loop of ribbon. “Does the whole thing lift out?”

Before her brothers could stop her, Trixie reached over and tugged it. The faded red velvet and the framework beneath slid out of the metal case.

“There’s another place to put a ring on the other side,” she observed, “but I still can’t see what’s inside this thing.”

“The velvet covers everything on the other side,” Honey pointed out. “If you put it in the other way and put the ring in, what happens?”

“The ring sits lower. And nothing happens when I touch it.” Trixie closed the sphere and tapped the top. “It looks kind of funny with that hole there.”

Diana took it from her. “Maybe there’s a way to close it up.” She fiddled with it for a moment, finding a small, swivelling tab that clicked into place. “There. That looks better.”

“What it is, what it does and how to make it stop,” Mart repeated, from the beginning of their discussion. “Well, I think that’s all we had to do. Mystery solved, and in record time.”

Trixie shook her head. “I’m not sure we really know what it does. And we don’t know what it is, either.”

“Well, I know what it is,” Dan answered. “It’s the ugliest jewellery box I’ve ever seen. And now that we’ve figured out how to stop it doing the weird things to your head, that’s all it is.”

“I guess so.” Trixie shook her head. “But I’d like to figure out some more about it.”

“You think that’s a good idea?” Brian asked her. “Even after hearing that this thing sent someone mad?”

Trixie grinned. “Yes.”

A loud thumping on the clubhouse door made them all jump.

“Are you kids in there?” a voice yelled.

“Come in, Grandpa!” Trixie answered, scrambling to her feet and wrenching open the door.

“Did you figure it out?” he asked. Then his eyes darted to the strange object. “So that’s how it goes together. I wondered.”

“It needs a good cleaning, but we’ve put it together so that it doesn’t do anything weird,” Honey explained, “but we’ll show you how to change it, just in case you want it to do the thing that it does, though, now that I come to think of it, I’m not sure why you’d want that.”

He winked at her. “I told these young ones that the last person who touched it went mad. How do you know that person wasn’t me?” He did not leave her time to answer. “No, that will be fine how it is, girlie. Don’t worry about explaining anything. I’ll take it just as it is.”

“But what about your son?” Trixie asked. “Isn’t he mad about this thing?”

“He was,” the old man admitted. “But I’ve told him that he’s a fool to believe all those old stories.” He chuckled. “That put him in his place all right. Especially since he never did believe. He was more worried about what I was intending to do with the thing.”

“What are you going to do?” Trixie asked.

He tucked the whole arrangement under his arm. “Put it in my collection, of course. And then none of them can make a fuss about it.” He nodded at his own logic. “I’ll be going, now.”

The door closed behind him and the seven Bob-Whites shared a look.

“He didn’t even say thanks,” Di noted, with a slight frown. “And he left that filthy crate behind, too.”

“Are you okay, Trixie?” Honey asked.

Her friend nodded. “I’m just thinking about those things I saw: the lost worlds. It’s kind of sad that I’ll never see them again.”

“Never?” Mart shook his head. “You don’t know that. Grandpa Crimper might leave it to you in his will.”

“I hope he doesn’t.” Brian glanced from his brother to his sister. “Given unlimited time to investigate, you probably would find a way to make it do her bidding. And that’s quite a concerning thought, given the supposed history of the object.”

“You mean, I might go mad?”

Mart put on a puzzled expression. “How would we tell the difference?”

Trixie only laughed.

The End

End notes: A big thank you to Mary N. (Dianafan) for editing for me at the last minute. I very much appreciate your help, Mary!

This story was written for CWE#26: It’s a Diamond Jubilee!, which celebrates the 75th anniversary of the first Trixie book. Writers needed to take inspiration from a list of diamond- or jubilee-related items. I chose Jim’s great-aunt’s ring.

A tribute story would not be complete without some references to the series. Jim’s great-aunt’s ring is from Secret of the Mansion, and pops up again in some later books. The Crimper family features in The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder. The letter hidden in the attic comes from The Mystery of the Emeralds.

As well as a tribute to the books, this story also serves as a tribute to those who came before me in the Trixie writing community, especially those early authors at Jix. Not all of the stories referenced are technically lost. At least one site is still up, but others have not been available for many years.

Also, as inspiration, I thought about the very early group stories, where a character hopped from one author’s universe(s) to another. This little offering does nothing to capture the fun and insanity of those stories, but the thought made me smile.

Happy 75th anniversary, Trixie!

Please note: Trixie Belden is a registered trademark of Random House Publishing. This site is in no way associated with Random House and no profit is being made from these pages.

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