"Showoff," Carlos said, his lips quirking into a smile.
Honestly, itwaspretty freaking cool.
I handed him the ball, and he punched a hole in it, wiggled his claw around a bit until the hole would fit the tent pole, and then handed it back to me, retracting his claw.
"Perfect!" I poked the pole's end into the ball and then handed it to Jack. Then I picked up the roll of duct tape and wrapped the tape around and around the ball to be sure it would stay on the pole. Then, for the final and most effective piece of the plan, I wrapped more tape all around it, but this time sticky side out.
"Voila!" I showed them my masterpiece. "Anything that's down in the bottom of the tree will stick to the tape so we can pull it out. We can also tape a phone and flashlight to the pole and FaceTime with the phone from here to see exactly what's down there."
Susan grinned and started clapping. "Tess, that's freaking brilliant!"
"And no magic at all," Logan said. "Jack, you do not deserve this woman."
"Don't I know it," Jack murmured, giving me a smile I felt clear down to my toes.
"So let's do it," Carlos said. He attached his phone to the pole, light and FaceTime turned on, and then flew? Levitated? The dozen feet up in the air to the hollow, where he floated motionlessly in midair and fed the pole in, patiently attaching segment after segment, until the entire ten feet of the pole—and Carlos's arm up to the armpit—were both inside the tree.
The rest of us crowded around Susan's phone and watched as the phone descended into the middle of the hollow—and very empty—tree.
"Wait! What's that?" Logan pointed at what looked like a smudge on the screen.
"It's a baseball," I said. "Wonder how long that's been in there?"
"Surprised there's only one," Jack said, grinning. "I remember some shenanigans when I was a kid where—"
"Bingo!" Susan shouted. "Look at that! Carlos, to your left! Or the phone's left. Or whatever!"
We stared at the phone as Carlos slowly rotated the pole until we could see an object highlighted in the center of Susan's screen.
"Stop!" I yelled. "That's it! That's got to be it!"
It surelyhadto be the dagger.
On the screen, an object sparkled in the light from Carlos's phone.
"Are those … jewels?" Logan's voice was filled with awe. Or maybe greed, considering what little I knew of Logan.
"They must be," I said. "Wow. That's amazing! And it's definitely dagger-shaped, right, Jack?"
He made a humming sound. "Mmm. Maybe? Whatever it is, we need to get it up out of there. But first, is there anything else?"
He stepped back and called up to Carlos. "Hey, do a slow, complete revolution so we can see the entire bottom of the tree, okay?"
Carlos did exactly that, but there was nothing else down there but leaves and dirt. Susan talked him through positioning the taped tennis ball directly over the sparkling object, and then he pressed down on it with the tennis ball and started to bring it back up through the tree, disassembling the pole segment by segment as he pulled it through.
"Carlos, wait!" I pointed at the screen. "It's going to fall off. Can you press the pole against the tree to your right? Gently? No, not that way, your other right!"
As we watched the screen, he pressed the ball of tape and the object against the inside of the tree to more firmly attach our precious prize, and then slowly, ever-so-slowly pulled it up and out of the tree.
"I've got it," he yelled, tossing the tent pole down to Jack.
Carlos floated down to the ground, and we immediately surrounded him. He held out the object, cradling it in his hands to show us. "Unfortunately, it's not a dagger."
"It's beautiful, though," I whispered.
"Stunning," Susan said.
"Worth a fortune," Logan said, rubbing his hands together.
