The Shadow Cipher

by Laura Ruby

  “And George Washington first read the Declaration in front of a crowd at city hall in 1776. And that’s where they found the next clue, in the cornerstone of the city hall built in 1811.”

  Theo sat on the nearest stone bench and tuned them out. In front of him, the original design of the statue was preserved behind glass. He didn’t have to read the description to know that the Liberty Statue was erected in 1851 at a time of increasing turmoil. He could hear his grandpa telling him: “The Lady was meant to represent the hopes and dreams of a struggling nation. The hope that everyone in America could be free.”

  Free, sure. Free to have your home ripped out from under you. Free to be laughed at by jerkface tourists. Free to—

  “Hey!”

  Nine had some kind of white paper in her mouth and was hopping around like she’d caught herself a whole tuna and wasn’t about to give it back.

  “She grabbed it right out of my pocket,” said Jaime.

  Tess bent down and held Nine’s harness to keep her still. “Isn’t that my grandpa’s letter?”

  “It is?” Jaime said. “Oh, sorry. I found it in the hallway outside your apartment, then forgot I had it.”

  “Nine must have dropped it when Slant’s minions came,” Tess said. “She doesn’t want to drop it now, though.”

  Jaime bent down next to Tess. He scratched Nine between her ears and under the chin until the cat purred like an Underway train. The letter fell to the ground.

  “How did you do that?” said Tess. “I can never make her let go of anything!”

  “I have a way with monster cats,” Jaime said. He held the letter up to the light. TRUST NO ONE TRUST NO ONE TRUST NO ONE was written all over it. He held it out to Tess. “You probably want to open it.”

  “It’s probably from some goofball. My grandpa still gets loads of letters like that. And all of them say ‘trust no one’ or ‘top secret’ or ‘for your eyes only’ or ‘the FBI is watching’ or whatever.”

  “This one looks kind of old, though,” said Jaime. He held it out to Theo. Theo shook his head. He didn’t need to read a letter likely written by a guy who lived in his mom’s basement and dressed entirely in duct tape.

  “You can open it if you want, Jaime,” Tess said. She stood and yawned. “I’m getting hungry. Maybe we should find some lunch before we go to city hall. A pretzel at least.”

  Theo should have figured that once they started, Tess would not stop until she’d reinvestigated every known clue. This was going to take forever, and it was still point—

  “Guys?” Jaime said.

  He had opened the envelope and was holding a worn and yellowed piece of paper, burned around the bottom edge. “So, the name of that Edgar Allan Poe story was ‘The Purloined Letter.’”

  “‘Right,’” said Theo. “So?”

  “Purloined. As in stolen.”

  “Yeah,” said Theo. “And?”

  “You also said that the Morningstarrs wouldn’t do anything random, right?”

  Because of the way Jaime held the paper and the envelope, only one word showed through his fingers: TRUST. Theo’s heart hiccuped. “Right,” he said.

  “So,” Jaime said, glancing up over the top of his glasses. “How funny would it be if I were holding a letter stolen from one of the Morningstarrs right here?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jaime

  Jaime scanned the letter again and again, then sat down on a stone bench so abruptly that he bruised his own butt. Long before Jaime became Jaime—when he was just little James Eduardo with his big black glasses and the red cape his father bought him one Halloween—he was obsessed with superpowers. He stood in front of the microwave to absorb the rays; he tickled spiders in the hopes they’d bite; he chewed mint and bay leaves so he’d become immune to toxins; he made his own Cerebro using one of his grandma’s colanders; he searched the sky at night sure a green lantern would find him, or maybe even the Green Goblin. There was no end to the ways a regular boy could become a super boy; his comic books were filled with them. Sometimes, a single superhero could have so many different beginnings that their stories were hard to keep straight. No, it didn’t happen like that, it happened like this! No, this! Now, this! Wait . . . this!

  Which one was the right story? Which one was the real story? And how would you ever be sure, when everything could always start all over again?

  He told himself that one day something special would happen, something amazing and surprising and unexpected—a lightning strike, an alien invasion, an experiment gone wrong—and he would have to be prepared. He practiced ninja moves, sword thrusts, scissor kicks and uppercuts, speed running, wall climbing, and cat crouching, driving Mima crazy in the process. She would say, “Why do you not stop moving for one single second?”

  And Jaime would say, “I am getting ready for my next beginning!”

  Mima would say, “And I am getting ready to tie you to your chair!”

  When he got to third grade at Charles Reason Elementary, he had to stop wearing the cape—because it wasn’t a part of the uniform and because the other kids made fun of him. But the cape wasn’t the only reason. They also made fun of him because he was tiny—the smallest, skinniest boy in the class, barely the size of a kindergartner. “Just one of your ’locs is bigger than you are,” the other kids said.

  Worse, what boy named Jaime Eduardo Cruz understood some Spanish but couldn’t speak much beyond hola and gracias and uno, dos, tres? It didn’t seem to matter that kids named Wagner couldn’t speak German, or kids named Maccarone couldn’t speak Italian. It didn’t seem to matter that his mother spoke English, and had studied Latin at her high school in New Jersey, or that that his grandmother was fluent in so many languages that she occasionally sounded like translation software.

  The two kids who didn’t make fun of Jaime were the two kids who got made fun of more than Jaime. Because they didn’t speak Spanish or German or Arabic or Chinese or Latin, they spoke some loopy, made-up language. And they spoke it a lot, mostly to each other.

  “Whabat abarabe yaboabu drabawabing?”

  Jaime looked up from his purple workbook. “Huh?”

  A girl with a braid nearly down to her waist turned his purple workbook around so she could see. “Whabo abis thabis?”

  He knew who she was, of course. She lived across the hall from Mima. He scanned the room and found her twin, who sat in the corner, reading a hardcover book with no pictures on the front. His normally huge, bushy hair had been shorn, and he looked sad and naked without it, as if someone had stolen his magic staff or his rocket car or lasso of truth.

  The girl tapped the figure of Miles Morales he’d drawn on the inside of his workbook and asked again. “Whabo abis thabis?”

  “That’s Ultimate Spider-Man. He’s different from the other Spider-Man.”

  She regarded the drawing. “Drabaw maborabe!”

  “Huh?”

  “Drabaw maborabe! Drabaw maborabe!” Even though she was speaking very fast, he got the gist. He thought a minute, then drew a quick picture of the Wasp.

  She clapped. He was so surprised, he looked around to see if anyone else was looking, if this was a joke. Most kids thought his drawings were okay, but nobody had ever clapped for them before. So he drew her a picture of Iron Man. Captain America. The Falcon. The Falcon when he became Captain America. The Morning Star, whose powers came from a malfunctioning Lion battery. Storm. Sunspot. And then, because she sort of reminded him of her, Kitty Pryde.

  “Tess Biedermann!” the teacher barked. “Are you done with your workbook page?”

  “Yabes!”

  “English, please.”

  “Yes. I finished the whole book.”

  “You . . . excuse me?”

  Tess said, “It was kind of fun. So I kept going.” Tess grabbed her workbook and held it up, smiling.

  The teacher was not smiling. The teacher stared at her; then her eyes slid to her brother in the back of the room. “Theo? Did you do your whole work
book?”

  “Nabo,” he said.

  “English!”

  “No.”

  “Did you finish your page?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “The directions don’t make sense.”

  “You didn’t understand them?”

  “I understood what they wanted me to do, but they weren’t clearly written. I thought I should read this book instead. It’s about nuclear fusion. Harnessing the power of the stars.”

  The teacher slumped at her desk, covering one half of her face with her hand, so that one eye was visible through the V between her pinky and ring finger. It made her look a little like a pirate, and a little like a really annoyed third-grade teacher. “What about you, Jaime? Are you reading about nuclear fusion?”

  “No,” he said. “I finished my page. I’m drawing superheroes.”

  “What else would you be doing.” This was not a question.

  Jaime said, “Tony Stark uses cold fusion. For his Iron Man suit.”

  “Even if you could create a reactor that small, you’d still have storage problems. And side effects,” Theo said.

  “He does,” said Jaime.

  “Hmmm,” said Theo.

  The teacher rested her elbows on her desk and put both hands over her face. “I want everyone in their seats. Those who have not completed their worksheets, finish them now. Everyone who has completed their entire workbook can sit quietly and practice meditation.”

  Before she sat down, Tess Biedermann leaned down and whispered, “You should create your own superhero. A brand-new one nobody’s ever seen before.”

  “I am,” he said, wondering how she knew.

  Later, when his grandmother found him scribbling away, drawing one superhero after the next—different outfits, different talismans, different powers—she asked him what he was doing. He said, “I am trying to find the right beginning.” Mima clucked her tongue and told him that he was clearly a cuckoo boy, because anyone could see he had already begun.

  Now Jaime sat on a bruised butt in the gallery of the Liberty Statue holding a letter about a letter, a letter about so many things, and had the strangest feeling that this was its own kind of beginning.

  “Jaime!” Tess stomped her foot.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “The letter! Are you going to read it or not?” said Tess.

  The twins squeezed next to him on the bench and peered over his shoulders as he read aloud:

  Dear T:

  I’m writing this to you now only to have to burn it later, as I must burn everything. I know we have to keep our secrets but it does grow tiresome.

  Wasn’t it lovely of Miss King and Mr. Munsterberg to join us at our little soiree? And when I say “lovely” of course I mean excruciating. Who keeps inviting these people? Perhaps I do. But I wish you wouldn’t argue so much about politics once you’ve realized there’s simply no point. I agree that the natives must keep their land east of the Mississippi as per our treaties with those nations, I agree that Jackson is a nightmare, but by the time we finished the soup course it was clear that we were dining with monsters. It would have been more productive to simply pelt them with roasted potatoes till they ran away. They were worse than that horrible woman who rummaged through your desk at our last dinner party. I can’t remember her name, but I remember her face when she looked in her reticule and saw that the letter she’d stolen from you had been replaced with some spiders I’d been working on. She did pinwheel about rather spectacularly, no? You keep telling me that I’ve lost my sense of humor, but I believe that incident proves I haven’t. Or perhaps I have regressed.

  In any case, I hope that none of these people will go to the Tredwells’. I would like to say that the occasion would be enlightening for all who need it, a fresh start, a new perspective, but some people do not wish to be enlightened. It pains me to say it pains me.

  Are we doing the right thing? Are we doing enough? Are we the right people to be doing any of it? Will we ever know? Maybe I have lost my sense of humor after all, but when I tell you that I don’t feel like myself anymore, I’m the only one who laughs. What have you lost?

  Never mind. I’m speaking in riddles again. I know how much you hate that.

  Let’s hope that no one fishes this nonsense from the fire.

  —T.

  When he finished reading, Tess’s eyes got so big that whole planets could have fallen into them. “That’s Theresa Morningstarr’s writing, but I’ve never seen this letter before. I’ve never heard of this letter before. And my grandpa has read everything the Morningstarrs have ever written. There are entire archives of their correspondence. Almost all of it is just boring business stuff.”

  Jaime scanned the letter again. It wasn’t boring at all. It was actually sort of funny and sad at the same time.

  “We can’t be sure it’s a Morningstarr letter,” said Theo. “It doesn’t sound like a Morningstarr letter.”

  “It’s written to ‘T’ from ‘T,’” Tess said. “She talks about keeping secrets, about the spiders she’s been working on. And what it says about burning letters explains why so few of their personal papers exist.”

  Jaime said, “But who could have fished it out of the fire? And who would have sent it to your grandfather all these years later?”

  “Who would have sent it today of all days!” said Tess.

  “It could have been sent a week ago,” Theo said. “It could have been sitting in that mailbox for a month.”

  “Still,” Tess said. “It’s a clue. I know it is.” She practically hummed with excitement. It was like sitting next to a beehive. Nine rubbed Tess’s knees with her face as if to calm her.

  “Okay, let’s think about this for a minute,” Theo said, hand stuck in his hair. “It seems important, but what if it’s some bizarre coincidence?”

  “This can’t be a coincidence,” Jaime said.

  “Nope,” Tess said. “Way too adorable.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Theo. “How can a coincidence be adorable?”

  “When it’s too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence,” said Jaime.

  “Maybe it’s a hoax,” Theo said. “The cipherist world is full of hoaxes. Someone could have written this letter, dipped it in coffee and burned it a little to make it look old, and forged Theresa’s handwriting just to mess with Grandpa. Happens all the time.” Theo got up and paced the gallery, his footsteps echoing. “Everything in that letter could be made up.”

  “Not everything,” said Jaime. “Jackson was pushing legislation to force the Cherokees and other nations to leave their homes and move to some lands in the middle of the country or some random place. Didn’t pass, though. I made a diorama about it in fourth grade. Did you guys ever try to make a diorama about legislation? It’s not that easy.”

  “I love making dioramas,” Tess said.

  “Everything else in this letter could be made up,” Theo said.

  “But isn’t this exactly what the Morningstarrs would do?” Tess said. “Bury a clue in a letter sent to a person who’s never even identified, a letter that talks about a stolen letter just like the Poe story? And this line, here, that’s underlined: would be enlightening for all who need it. It’s like they’re messing with anyone trying to solve the cipher.”

  “Okay, but someone had to send this to Grandpa Ben. If you had a real Morningstarr clue, why would you send it to anyone? Why wouldn’t you check it out yourself?” Theo said.

  “Maybe whoever sent it tried to figure it out but couldn’t,” said Tess. “Or maybe whoever sent it wanted Grandpa to solve it.”

  “Tess—”

  Tess shook her head so aggressively her braid whacked Jaime in the arm. “It has to be a clue.”

  “Who are Miss King and Mr. Munsterberg?” said Jaime.

  “If this is a Morningstarr clue, the names aren’t important. Most of the other clues were codes or ciphers,” said Theo.

  “So all
we have to do is figure out what kind of puzzle it is,” Tess added.

  Jaime had solved puzzles before. The rules always seemed random until one of them worked—then they made perfect sense. “Maybe we’re supposed to apply the numbers from the very first clue that appeared in the newspaper in 1855 to this letter?”

  Theo frowned, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. Those numbers were 42, 1, 2; 42, 20, 7; 42, 1, 10, like that. There aren’t even forty-two lines in this whole letter.”

  Tess said, “The solution to the very first clue was the date the Liberty Statue’s book. 741776. Try numbering the lines in the body of the letter.”

  Jaime took out his sketchbook and started scribbling. “So, if we don’t count the greeting as a line, we get

  ‘Mississippi as per our treaties with those nations, I agree that Jackson is a’

  ‘And when I say “lovely” of course I mean excruciating. Who keeps inviting these people?’

  ‘I’m writing this to you now only to have to burn it later, as I must burn everything. I’

  ‘Mississippi as per our treaties with those nations, I agree that Jackson is a’

  ‘Mississippi as per our treaties with those nations, I agree that Jackson is a’

  ‘there’s simply no point. I agree that the natives must keep their land east of the’”

  “Well,” said Theo, “That doesn’t look like much of anything.”

  “But even if the key refers to certain lines, we don’t know which word is important in the line,” Jaime said.

  Tess said, “Sometimes there’s a pattern. Maybe it follows the 741776 code? Seventh word, fourth word, like that?”

  But when they tried using the seventh word of the first line and then the fourth and first, they didn’t get anything useful.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Tess said. “We’re missing something.”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you back at Grandpa’s apartment,” Theo said. “People have been trying to solve this mystery for more than one hundred fifty years. Even if this is a Morningstarr clue—and we have no idea if it is—it could take decades just to figure it out.”