Because of the necklace and the orb? Was my fear—my condition—the mistake? Was I the mistake?
I wish I’d figured this out sooner. Everything could have been so much easier for you. Better late than never, I hope.
“What are you talking about?” I wondered aloud. The more times I read her words, the less sense they made.
I’m sorry, sweetie. I love you.
My eyes burned as I read my mom’s final words. It sounded like a goodbye.
Absently, I rubbed my thumb over a faint brownish smudge near the corner of the receipt.
Much to my surprise, the smudge appeared to darken under the friction rather than clear away.
I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking I’d been staring at the receipt for too long. So long that I was starting to see things. But when I opened them again, not only was the smudge still there, it was definitely darker. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it was looking more like two smudges than one.
I moved the receipt closer to the lamp’s bulb and leaned in.
The smudges not only darkened the longer the thin paper remained near the bulb. They grew.
Into letters. Into words. Into a hidden message.
“The lemon,” I mouthed, eyes widening as I sat up straighter. “Of course!”
It had been right there in front of my face the whole time; I’d just been too blind to see it. My mom had bought a box, a newspaper, a bottle of water, and a lemon. She must have used the juice from the lemon to create a rudimentary invisible ink, hidden until enough heat brought whatever else she’d written to light.
I waited not-so-patiently as the blurred letters became darker and more defined. As the hidden message became clearer.
And then I blinked, and I could make sense of it—a message meant for my eyes, and my eyes alone. A single line. A clue.
Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
I read and reread the line, over and over. It was a quote from Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
A slow grin spread across my face. My mom wouldn’t have included a hidden message if she wasn’t still out there. If there wasn’t still hope. If she didn’t want me to find her.
And thanks to that message, I knew exactly what she wanted me to do.
5
After that brief, abysmal stint of kindergarten when I was a kid, my mom had pulled me out of public school, opting instead to home school me right here in Blackthorn Manor. Emi had helped out in the math and science departments, her particular specialties. They’d been an excellent teaching team, finding ways to make learning feel like an adventure, an endless quest for knowledge. In fact, they’d been so good that I hadn’t understood why Raiden was constantly complaining about his classes and homework. All of my work was homework. And I’d loved it.
My mom’s specialty was history, of course. And languages. And, oddly enough for someone who wasn’t even remotely religious, she knew a ton about religion, especially the Judeo-Christian family. I never really understood that.
All of my studies had been interdisciplinary, with history at the core of almost every project. When tasked with creating a model of the solar system, I also learned about the lives and times of the pioneering astronomers who’d honed our understanding of the universe over the millennia, as well as the rich Greco-Roman mythology behind the Western names of the various celestial bodies. When studying the Golden Ratio, I was tasked with photographing as many examples of it in nature as I could find on our property, as well as learning about the pyramids of Egypt and Euclid, Fibonacci, and Da Vinci, who’d all incorporated the Golden Ratio into their work. And during the year I spent executing a series of Mendelian pea plant experiments in the greenhouse, I also worked through an interactive digital simulation of Darwinian evolution and read On the Origin of Species.
Though that had been my first time reading the entirety of Origin, it hadn’t been my first exposure to Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking foundational work. My mom was a big fan of Old Charlie, as she called him, and as far back as I could remember, she’d been pulling quotes from Origin to qualify any myriad of topics or explain away the mysteries of backward thinking over the span of human history.
“Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”
That particular line had been one of her personal favorites. Once, she even used it to justify why my education was so history-heavy. The one and only time I complained about it, whining that studying the past was pointless—I blame emerging teen angst—my mom had relied on Old Charlie to set me straight.
I was twelve at the time, and we were in the library, deciphering the symbols on a 300-year-old nautical chart.
“Do you know what the light is?” she had asked me after reciting the line.
I had rolled my eyes, possibly even going so far as to groan. “I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“Knowledge, Cora,” had been her response. “Curiosity. The search for truth—that is the light.” Her words were laced with gentle vehemence, the blue of her irises alight with quiet intensity. “We must always keep searching, seeking the light, or we risk falling into the darkness.”
Unable to resist, I had asked her what was in the darkness.
She had looked away, her gaze growing distant and filling with ghosts. “Monsters,” she had whispered, that single, hushed word laden with more fear than any scream or shout.
I never asked her about the things in the darkness again. They scared my mom, the bravest person I knew; that was enough for me to want to stay far, far away.
I wasn’t sure I could keep my distance any longer.
Armed with the receipt from Rome and the cryptic message my mom had hidden in invisible ink on the back, I rolled the chair away from the desk and stood. I grabbed my gloves, quickly pulling them on up to my elbows. I didn’t usually wear them when I was alone, but after that latest episode, I figured I couldn’t be too careful. Emi was in the house, after all—she’d long ago taken to staying in the guest bedroom three doors down from mine when my mom was away.
Tila, dozing on the foot of the bed, roused at my movement and raised her head, watching me with interest.
“Come on,” I told her, moving closer to the bed to scratch behind her short, floppy ears. “It’s time for an adventure.”
She inhaled deeply, sighed as she exhaled, and stood, getting in a good, long stretch before lazily slipping off the bed. She shook her head, her ears making a clapping noise, and looked at me.
I patted the outside of my thigh, and she fell in step behind me. Dog at my heels, I crossed the room, eased the bedroom door open, and slipped out into the dark hallway. As quietly as possible, I made my way along the corridor that led to the library deep within the heart of the old mansion. The discovery of my mom’s hidden message was still so fresh, I wanted to keep it to myself just a little bit longer.
Blackthorn Manor was huge and old, or at least old by Pacific Northwest standards. It was built in 1906 by my great-great-grandfather, a prominent shipbuilder of the time, and the century-old teak flooring creaked and groaned with each footfall, no matter how softly I stepped.
There was nothing gothic about the nautical-themed mansion, but I felt in need of a long nightgown and a flickering candle as I crept along the dark hallway, ghostly memories lurking in every crack and corner. It almost felt as though my mom were there with me, guiding me toward whatever it was she wanted me to find.
I slid open one panel of the library’s enormous, teak pocket doors, slipped into the cavernous room and waited for Tila to join me, then turned and closed us in. The heavy darkness was punctured by the exterior lights shining through the maritime stained-glass window on the far side of the library, the patches of light tinted amber and blue from the colored pieces of glass. The pipes of a massive, two-story organ climbed up the walls to either side of the decorative window, the brass gleaming silver and gold in the filtered light. Two spiral staircases connected the main floor to the mezzanine, one on either si
de of the room.
I’d spent more time here in the Blackthorn library than I had in the virtual world—which was really saying something—and I knew the layout of the room better than the back of my hand. I cut a path through the center of the library, angling slightly to the right to circumvent the four-foot-tall armillary sphere my mom had added ten years ago.
Some people redecorated by changing up the curtains or paint color or by purchasing some art, but not my mom; she redecorated by hunting down antique astronomical instruments and other historical artifacts to put on display. She’d collected so many pieces during her seemingly endless string of expeditions over the years that Blackthorn Manor was as much a museum as it was a home.
I made a sharp left just past the armillary sphere to avoid the senet table and accompanying pair of armchairs, then made a beeline for my mom’s desk. It was a beastly thing of brass and carved walnut. It had been custom-built for the house, and so far as I knew, had never been moved from its place beneath the stained-glass window.
When I reached the desk, I pulled the cord on the small Tiffany lamp set in the corner, lighting the library with the lamp’s muted glow. The surface of the desk was as sparse and pristine as ever, not a paper in sight and not an antique accessory out of place.
“Stay here,” I told Tila, patting her muscular cheek.
She sat, head cocking to the side.
“Good girl,” I said, turning away from both dog and desk.
I headed for the spiral staircase on the left side of the library. Hand on the brass railing, I carefully made my way up to the mezzanine. I’d made a full 360 by the time I reached the top.
I didn’t pause as I stepped foot onto the mezzanine. I followed the railing around to the far end of the library, toward the two bookcases that housed my mom’s most prized volumes. Her copy of Origin was among the books stored there.
As I stopped in front of the bookcases, the light was almost too faint to read the titles on the spines. Almost, but not quite.
I found the leather-bound edition of Origin near the center of a shelf just below eye-level. When I pulled the book free, I peeked at the top before even cracking it open. The ribbon marked a page near the beginning, in the exact place the line from my mom’s hidden message should be.
My heart beat a little faster, and my hands trembled. In mere moments, I would find out whatever it was my mom wanted to tell me but had been afraid to write directly.
I slid the nail of my index finger between the two pages separated by the ribbon and opened the book.
A single word was scrawled in pencil in the outer margin on the left-hand page, beside the quoted line. Or rather, a name: Hypatia.
I blew out a breath. I hadn’t reached the endpoint of this mystery, just a stop along the way. Apparently, my mom had set up a secret scavenger hunt meant just for me, and there was no saying how long the hunt would take or what the purpose would end up being.
There were better ways for me to be spending my time, like trying to figure out what happened to her in Rome, rather than following a path she’d laid out before she’d even left. Before she’d gone missing.
I blinked, lips parting and eyes opening wide.
If my mom had set this up before her trip, then she’d known it might end badly. Hell, she’d expected it to. What, exactly, had she gotten herself into? And moreover, what did she think I could do about it from here? Something, evidently, but what?
Motivation refreshed, I shelved the book and rushed back to the spiral staircase. I raced down the steps, hand gripping the brass railing tightly. When I reached the bottom, I headed straight for the Classics section on the other side of the room, near the opposite spiral staircase, Tila falling in step close behind me.
Hypatia was an ancient Roman Neoplatonist scholar who’d lived in Alexandria during the fourth and fifth centuries, this side of zero. She’d been a brilliant mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer, going so far as to teach and even advise prominent Alexandrian men, something that was extremely uncommon for women of her era. Unfortunately, Hypatia had been caught up in a period of religious and political turmoil and had been murdered by a Christian mob for her pagan beliefs. She’d become a martyr to philosophy, and many centuries after her death, she’d been turned into a feminist icon.
My mom viewed Hypatia with the same sort of reverence Catholics viewed the Virgin Mary. As I skimmed the book spines, searching for any volume of Hypatia’s work, I recalled the deep sadness that had shown in my mom’s eyes as she expressed what a pity it had been that none of Hypatia’s writings had survived the centuries.
Which explained why I wasn’t currently having any luck finding anything authored by the ancient scholar on the bookshelf. There wasn’t anything to find.
“Moron,” I admonished, shaking my head as I turned away from the bookcase.
I followed the wall of books away from my mom’s desk, seeking out the biography section six or seven bookcases down. I wasn’t looking for something written by Hypatia, but about her. I had no idea what I would find in the collection. Biography was one of my least favorite genres, and I was entirely unfamiliar with the books lining these shelves.
When I reached the section, I slowed my search, taking my time to read each and every title. I didn’t know if I was seeking a book about Hypatia exclusively, so as I skimmed the spines, I looked for any sign that the book might either be about Hypatia, or even just reference her. To complicate matters, the books were organized by author, not subject matter, which didn’t help me at all. My frustration mounted with each successive shelf.
“Come on,” I muttered. “Where is it?”
Second shelf from the bottom, five books from the left. Hypatia, written by someone with the last name of Kingsley. The volume was bound in black leather with gold writing. The book was far from new, the black finish on the spine was worn, peeling in some places to reveal the leather’s warm brown hue.
I felt a spike of excitement the moment I spotted it. I was one step closer to figuring this all out.
I reached for the book, curling a fingertip over the top of its spine, and slowly pulled the volume toward me. It tilted out maybe a third of the way, but then it stopped, seeming to be stuck.
Brow furrowing, I gripped the spine of the book and tugged.
There was a faint click from somewhere within the wall behind the bookcase.
Tila stood, a low growl rumbling in her barrel chest.
A moment later, the entire bookcase sank into the wall, then swung away from me with the soft creak and groan of shifting wood, revealing a passage. A secret passage.
“Wow,” I whispered, mind frantically processing what I’d found.
There was a genuine, honest-to-God secret passage right here in Blackthorn Manor. In my own home. It had been right under my nose my entire life.
I was utterly flabbergasted. It seemed crazy and impossible, like something straight out of one of my video games. Then again, the house had been built by a man who’d thought including a massive pipe organ was a logical design element for a home library, so maybe I should’ve expected something like this.
I shot a quick glance over my shoulder, taking in the comforting familiarity of the library, then took a deep breath and stepped into the passage. Into the unknown.
6
A wall sconce lit up as I entered the tunnel, startling me. I sucked in a breath and backed up a step.
Unruffled, Tila continued on, nose to the ground as she sniffed the floor of the shallow landing.
The light appeared to be on the newer side, but the teak floor in here was dull and worn, as though it had been tread upon day after day for a hundred years with minimal upkeep. Beyond the landing, a narrow set of stairs descended, steeper than anything that would meet modern building codes. Whatever lay beyond the foot of the stairs was shrouded in darkness.
I frowned, wondering just how many times my mom had walked down these stairs. How long had she been hiding this from me? Why had she
been hiding it?
Tila paused at the edge of the landing and raised her head, her ears perked up as she looked back at me. She seemed to be saying, “Are we doing this, or what?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” I muttered, waving her on.
The stocky pit bull turned her attention back to the stairs and started down, her tail wagging back and forth with each successive step.
Heart hammering in my chest, I followed my dog. I placed one hand on the wall to steady myself as I descended the steep staircase, counting the steps as I went. I reached twenty around the halfway point.
There were twenty steps in the grand staircase just between the first and second floors of Blackthorn Manor. It seemed safe to assume that this staircase descended well below ground level. The odd part was that the house didn’t have a basement, at least not one that I knew about—so where was the passage leading me? What was under the house?
My pace increased. Whatever was down here, it must have been an original feature to Blackthorn Manor, perhaps used by my mom, but not created by her. The passage had to have been commissioned by my extravagant great-great-grandfather to have been built between the walls during the original construction of the house.
By the time I reached the bottom step, the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. A little too cool for comfort in my T-shirt and leggings, even with the gloves. The chill gave rise to goosebumps on my arms, but it wasn’t quite cold enough for me to see my breath. This was subterranean cold—a constant, low-grade cold that flavored the air and permeated the walls. I was definitely underground.
The moment my foot touched the floor at the base of the stairs, more lights flickered on, these lining either side of the passageway in sconces of glass and brass fit into recesses in the wall. Tila hadn’t triggered the sensor, which meant it must have been targeting motion higher up.
Legacy of the Lost Page 3