The Explorer's Code, page 10
Emily ran out of the room.
“Bye,” Charlie said. Guess they’re okay? Charlie would have thought she’d have a lot more to say about those old paintings! She might also have known things about Idlewood that could have helped him. But it looked like this code was his alone to break.
Charlie opened his book to a random page. Where to next? He looked down at the pages.
A floor plan. That was helpful. He could see rooms he hadn’t checked yet. There was the first floor, taken care of. And all the suites on the second floor.
Charlie swallowed. Would he really have to poke around those rooms? And what about those other second-floor rooms on the map, past the hallway with the suites?
Huh. Charlie hadn’t known there were rooms that way. He hadn’t thought to explore the house’s every corner (though he was sure Anna had). And even more interesting was the hallway itself—how it seemed to lead to nowhere.
He traced the upstairs hallway with his finger. Yep. It just ended. Now why would it do that?
Cradling the book, Charlie hurried to the second floor. He passed all the guests’ suites and turned onto the next hallway. These doors weren’t numbered, and although the hall was clean, it had the air of not being lived in for a long time.
And there, at the end of the hall, was a bookcase. Grinning, Charlie quickened his walk to a run.
He got there so quickly that he almost slammed into the shelf. It wasn’t very full, only one stack of books beside a grimy fake plant. But if one of those books was—
“Yes!” He picked up the book on the top of the stack. Treasure Island. If Charlie had wanted to hide a book, he would have done it in a library, not in an empty hallway. But then again, that was the first place he’d checked. Silver or Elaine or Mr. Gardner, whoever it was, had planned this clue well!
The bookcase shook. Charlie leaped back, dropping the book on the carpet. He eyed the shelf, breathing heavily, but it didn’t happen again.
What the heck? Charlie took a deep breath and scooped up the book. He hadn’t imagined it, had he? The shelf had really shaken?
If it had, there was no sign of the tremor. The cheap plastic plant hadn’t fallen over or anything. But Rosie’s comment about ghosts came back to him. Idlewood was an old house, after all. Could there be dark stories in its history that no one knew about? Ones that could have created a ghost?
Holding the book between white fingers, he turned and fled down the hall. As he passed the Serengeti suite, an unearthly howl from inside cut through the air. Charlie gasped, choking on his own breath, and sped past faster, not stopping until he was back in the quiet library.
He sat in his now-favorite brocade armchair, gulping for air. What had he seen? What had he heard?
Safe and surrounded by books, Charlie returned to logical thought. Probably just an illusion. He must have bumped the bookcase, and its resulting wobble startled him. And the howl? Just someone watching TV.
But this house didn’t have any TVs.
Charlie shuddered, then dismissed the thought. Anna would never be scared by something so silly. He turned Treasure Island over in his lap. Here it was. Now, where was the clue?
Again, was the code related to Silver? Or to this book? Now that Charlie had found a copy, hidden somewhere out of the way, he had a hard time believing it was coincidence. No, this book was meant to be found, but only by someone who knew what they were looking for. So what was he looking for?
Charlie searched the book from cover to cover. No papers hidden in the pages, and neither front nor back covers seemed too thick, like they were hiding a paper in the binding. No writing on the pages or circled letters.
Circled letters. Wait. There was more than one way to put a code in a book. Maybe this was a book code.
That made a lot of sense. For a book code, the person encoding the message would use the words inside a book, marking their location with a string of three numbers. The numbers could indicate a page number, then a specific line on that page, and word in that line. For example, 53-12-7 would point to the fifty-third page, the twelfth line on that page, and the seventh word in that line. But that only worked with a specific edition of a book. Sure, that made a book code extra hard to break because it required both the sender and the receiver to have the same exact edition, but it also made the code nearly impossible to solve if it was difficult to find two copies of the same edition, or if a book had many editions and reprints.
Like Treasure Island.
But since the mural didn’t specify an exact edition, that could mean Charlie was dealing with a different form of a book code, one that was less secure but more flexible. In this kind of code, the numbers would correspond to the chapter number, the specific paragraph in that chapter, and then the specific word in that paragraph. The code would be a list of word locations that would be true of any edition, and the receiver could, in their own copy of the book, look up each word until it created a message.
Charlie pushed his glasses up his nose, hand shaking not with terror over imagined ghosts (he was sure they were imagined) but with excitement. Another thing about book codes was that they were perfect for longer messages.
Was this it? The final message, the real reason why the clues had been set in doors and walls? Charlie hoped it was, and that all he’d have to do was solve this book code and uncover it all!
But his energy faded as quickly as it came. So what if he’d found Treasure Island? It was only the means to read a code. The code itself was still out there, hidden.
Where? Was the clue hidden in one of the codes he’d already solved, or would he have to search for it?
Charlie’s stomach growled. Outside the library, people were filing into the dining room.
Lunchtime.
It was no good thinking on an empty stomach. He’d solve it later. One way or another, he’d find the message he needed and solve the book code.
Charlie left the library, book tucked under his arm. As he passed through the hall, he frowned. Where had the crystal clock on the table beside the dining room gone?
10
THE TOWER ROOM was surprisingly cozy, once Anna got past all the dust. A perfect place to work.
First she dug through the drawer she’d found earlier with the compass, picture, and letter. Maybe she’d missed something. Anna set the compass down on the desk and placed the picture frame with the two sisters right beside it. “Hey, Ginny,” she said, touching the old photo. “I found your other staircase.”
Holy cow, she had really lived here! Here, in Idlewood! And to think, this whole room had been hidden away for decades. No one had ever seen it before, except for Virginia and the Gardners—and now, Anna herself.
It was like hearing distant thunder, to think about it. And it filled Anna with lightning. She jumped up and started the hunt.
Two letters lay beside Virginia’s bed. In a stack of charts on the highest platform, Anna found another. Three more on the next platform, poking out from under a stack of charts beside the dresser! And finally, sandwiched between old papers covered in numbers (Longitudes? Latitudes? A travel budget?), Anna found one more letter.
It seemed fitting that Virginia’s records would require a treasure hunt to find them. There was a story, not well documented, about Virginia being asked to investigate some Mayan ruins. She had agreed, and come out of the ruins with jewelry and stones carved with ancient stories, which she’d handed over to the authorities (who had reportedly gifted her with some jewelry of her own). Perhaps she had been the first in centuries to see those carvings.
Just like Anna was the first person to see these letters in many years. Maybe there were stories in them that no one else knew about. Adventures even grander than the ones in all the books Anna had read about Virginia Maines. She’d be the first, after so long, to know.
Anna took the letters back to the desk and carefully set them down in a stack. She didn’t want to harm the old paper if she could help it, especially not when she knew who these letters belonged to. She found the oldest (one from beside the dresser) and began to read.
Dear Ginny,
Your stories of the people you met on your journeys in the Pacific Islands were swell! I suppose children are the same no matter where you are. I admit, I have been thinking about children quite a bit lately. After all, soon you will be an aunt!
Anna pulled back from the letter, smiling. She could imagine Virginia, away in some foreign locale, jumping up and down with the joy that Elaine was going to have kids.
We have been using the tea set you brought us. Everett in particular loves it, though he suggests we only use it for special occasions. I disagree; I love it too much, and we have had so few special occasions lately! I will have to use it when Everett is at work, as he often is.
I’m sure you won’t mind, but I shared your last letter with Everett. He was charmed by your sketches of the stilt houses of the Caroline Islands and asked me to ask if you wouldn’t prefer a house rather higher in the air, perhaps in the branches of a tree. He also wants me to add that he hopes you do not break your arm trying to build one on your own.
Yes, I told him about your little misadventure. It serves you right for telling about my embarrassing piano recital at the wedding! And I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know that now we could both laugh about it. I admit, the fault was as much mine as yours. We both loved that book, though with its tales of treasure and adventure on the high seas, perhaps the story of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver spoke to you more than to me. I know how cheated you felt that Ben Gunn made his home in a cave, not a tree house. You always did like seeing the world, even if it was just from a high place.
Which is why I feel a little sad that we don’t have a tree house of our own at Idlewood. Somewhere high above it all. Perhaps one day, we will build one, just you and me, and we can model it after the one you, in your frustration, drew on the cover of Treasure Island, just so the book would have at least one tree house! Although I fear that may have to wait for many years, as I imagine I may have my hands full soon with little ones. But I don’t mean to be such a wet blanket. After all, there’s still time. When you come back to visit, perhaps we can make a plan for its construction once the children are old enough. Though you will have to do the climbing. The thought of being so far from the ground turns my bones to jelly. And no, no amount of persuasion from you will change my mind! I’m serious!
Speaking of which, I told Everett about your idea for a tower. He said we don’t have the money to spend adding a whole section of the house just for you, but he hopes that maybe, soon, that will change. He says you’re welcome to stay with us whenever you’d like and if you find any exotic plants, to bring cuttings for him.
Hoping to see you soon,
Elaine
It seemed Elaine shared Charlie’s fear of heights. And, Anna thought, touching her arm where her own bone had been broken on that ill-fated pier trip, it seemed she and Virginia had something in common, too.
And yet Elaine and Virginia seemed to be so close, teasing and swapping stories even after one was married, while Anna and Charlie struggled to do anything together.
“Why?” she wondered out loud.
Anna looked at the date on the letter. January 1922. After the wedding but still years before Virginia’s disappearance in 1925. What had happened between those dates? She picked up another letter and read it.
Dear Ginny,
Why didn’t you tell me that you would be traveling to Greece and Rome on this latest expedition? Perhaps you did tell me. Perhaps I remember that you did, and in fact that you told me often. But if I had fully understood (and had not been troubled by looking after little Simon), I would have traveled with you.
Laugh if you want; I understand that I have shuddered at many of your travels. But Rome is not the canoe trip down the Mississippi you invited me to join you on. In Rome, I would have access to comfort far beyond what a tent could offer. Besides, I have always wanted to go to Rome! It is where great thinkers and writers shared their thoughts with the world! It is where my beloved Caesar cipher was born!
And now I’ve slain you, I can tell. Go ahead and laugh. I have not even told you how I have been leaving Everett love notes written in our own Caesar cipher, with his name as the key. I think it’s more fun if the message unfolds over time. Father was right in assigning us our magical nicknames. I am, and will always be, the Sphinx, with my love of riddles. And you, my fiery, treasure-hunting sister, deserve yours just as much. (On a somewhat related note, I found a brooch at the jeweler’s that practically calls you by name!)
Which is the key for your code! Of course I’d have one for you, too, you bearcat. Enjoy this Caesar cipher in Rome: Tcdkh ylu nlq tco Dnqeadk jdsh, dkg nlq tqustekb jo wetc yluq ilvoiy mdektekb dkg fdq ln scoiis. E weii hoom tcoj sdno nlq ylu uktei ylu qotuqk.
Sincerely,
Your not-quite-so-angry sister Elaine, and also baby Simon
P. S. The pearl earrings you gave me for my birthday have gone missing. I was worried Simon swallowed them, but now I remember I lent them to you last time you visited. Did they find their way into your bag by accident?
Anna smiled. Elaine was more like Charlie than she had thought! Imagine if he had been the one to find this letter. He would have gotten right to work deciphering the code.
Anna, on the other hand, didn’t bother. She didn’t know how to begin to solve it, and there were other stories to read.
One by one, she read the letters, wandering around the tower when sitting still became a pain. They were all short, with a few other codes here and there penned by Elaine. Elaine would ask questions about Virginia’s travels (though, after reading her hero’s nickname so often, Anna was starting to think of her as “Ginny”), assure her that no, she still did not want to climb any trees, thank her for any trinkets Ginny had brought back for the family, and tell about how her growing children were doing and the books she’d read. It seemed that Elaine was fond of mysteries, first and foremost, but would read anything she could get her hands on.
So Charlie, it was uncanny.
But all these letters, written years before the disappearance, told Anna nothing about why Ginny had vanished. Or why the tower and the whole third floor had been left abandoned. She learned that Ginny would come to live at Idlewood between travels, and that Everett did eventually build a tower for her as a kind of upper-class tree house, complaining the whole time about the expense, and that Ginny helped design it, though there was no word on whether Ginny and Elaine ever got their real tree house. She learned about life at Idlewood, as Elaine had another child and got used to being a mother. She even read a letter from Everett, asking Ginny all about her travels and if she could bring back some jade from China for Elaine’s birthday and maybe a bonsai tree for himself.
Yet one voice was missing: Ginny’s. Reading these letters, Anna could see the background around the adventurer: her sister, her life, her travels. Elaine would say things like, “It sounds like Kiwako is becoming quite a handful to her parents,” “Did you tell Brigid that we would buy any quilts she would sell us? I hope you did,” and, “For the last time, please pack extra mittens or you know what will happen,” making Anna wonder how many stories Ginny and Elaine shared that weren’t written here. The scraps and hints were like the paper around a cutout shape, but the shape itself was missing. And Anna really, really wanted to see it.
Once the letters were read, Anna returned to the desk, stacked them neatly, and stuck them in the drawer. Then she looked at the other drawers.
They wouldn’t open. Stuck, maybe, clogged by the passage of time or maybe with secret latches! “You would do that, wouldn’t you, Ginny?” Anna asked, kneeling in the dust. “I bet it’s right under here.”
She pried at the bottom of the desk. There was a screw that looked too loose to be a real screw, but it was far back. Maybe if she leaned a little more—
Anna fell face-first. Her collision echoed in the empty room. Coughing, she pushed herself up. No, that wasn’t an echo. A worn, scratched, leather-bound book had fallen when she shook the floorboards. It must have been leaning against the desk, standing upright against the wood. Yes—she could see the narrow, clean strip on the ground where the book’s bottom edge had kept the dust from covering it, before it fell over.
Oh, this could be so much better than a hidden drawer! Reverently, Anna picked up the book. She hadn’t opened it, but she had a hunch about what kind of book this was.
Anna brushed the dust off the book and leaned in to take a deep sniff. The sour smell of old leather and the musty vanilla of paper. And, even after all these years, she thought she could smell the briny scent of the sea.
She cradled the book in her hand and opened it with as much care as she would a mummy’s sarcophagus, letting the pages fall open to an entry in the center, where a picture of Ginny posing with a bunch of South Pacific men was stuck between the pages.
Anna pressed her fist against her mouth and let out a scream. It was really Ginny’s journal! She moved the picture and read.
Goodness, one can get lonely on this raft! I can only hope that I don’t become so lonely that I start talking to the fish.
Ginny’s writing was small, quick, and leaned right, like it was rushing to the end of the sentence. Anna read the story and turned to another one.
I found a pair of alabaster sphinxes in the market, and I knew I had to buy them. One I’ll give to Elaine as a thank-you for the beautiful dragon brooch she gave me, and the other I’ll keep for myself.
Anna spent the morning reading story after story.
The whole world is talking about my brilliance in discovering the secret room in the French abbey. I’m afraid, dear journal, that the truth is rather less brilliant. I stumbled and put my hand into the tapestry and could feel no wall there. Luck is so often on my side, but no one seems to want to give it credit for what I do. So I shall do so here. Let this make up for the brilliance no one saw that one time I found my way to a hidden valley in the Congo.
