The Scrolls of Velia

by John McWilliams

  oiuuuudhsdmklnakjdi of the night jhbuausdhfknuiohadipuapslk

  Mary assembled the words and read the complete message out loud: “Eureka lies at the end of the road of the dead within the mansion of the night.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “A riddle?”

  “Maybe it ties in with another of Poe’s stories,” Mary suggested.

  “Who cares? It’s not the Eureka Formula.”

  “Well…” Adella began pacing. “Poe did write about people coming back from the dead. But ‘the road of the dead’… that actually sounds more mythological.”

  I searched the internet for both “the road of the dead” and “mansion of the night,” but found nothing conclusive.

  “Wait.” Mary separated out two words in one of the last rows.

  jfhjdhjskhrkskjnckjshdkjf herman schmaltz nsdkjnfdskjhrken

  “Have you ever heard of a Herman Schmaltz?” she asked.

  Adella and I looked at each other knowingly.

  “Dr. Herman Schmaltz,” Adella said, “worked with Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr on the early development of quantum mechanics. He was a genius.”

  “You mean like you?” Mary asked Adella.

  “Exactly like her,” I said.

  Adella waved off the comparison, but it was true: she was in his league. The only difference between her and Schmaltz was that Schmaltz happened to be born into the right place at the right time, while Adella happened to be born into a place and time that had her digging up skulls and running from a murderous cult.

  “He definitely would have been in Berlin in 1942,” I said, looking up from Dr. Schmaltz’s Wikipedia page. “But what’s with this riddle?” I read it again: “‘Eureka lies at the end of the road of the dead within the mansion of the night.’”

  “Maybe it’s a warning,” Adella suggested.

  “Or…” Mary rubbed her chin professorially. “Maybe there actually is a ‘road of the dead.’”

  “I didn’t find anything on the internet,” I said.

  “Maybe you need to look harder.”

  “I’m not the only one with a phone,” I replied.

  She rolled her eyes. Apparently she thought Googling, like shoveling, was man’s work.

  We all fell silent. Adella sighed and walked over to the south wall, staring at the lights across the lake. I knew what she was thinking: we had cracked the cipher, yet we were no closer to discovering the Eureka Formula.

  “You ever consider that the Eureka Formula might be just a myth?” I asked. “Like Fermat’s Last Theorem?”

  “It’s not a myth.” Adella kept staring. “Although, it does feel a lot like we’re back to square one.”

  I leaned back on my elbows on the oak floor. “Then maybe we should go back to looking at the evidence we have against Raven Entelechy. Maybe I could try bringing it to my father.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mary stood up, hands on her hips. “Adella would end up back in the hospital, we’d end up in jail, and Raven Entelechy would end up doing just what they’ve always done—only they’d probably find out about the notebook and confiscate that too. Come on, we solved the cipher! It wasn’t what we expected, but that’s no reason to give up.”

  Adella turned from the wall. “We’re just tired.”

  “Maybe we should take a break,” I suggested. “We’ve been going at this for hours—”

  “All right, you two need to stop being so negative. Come on.” Mary herded us into the kitchen’s breakfast nook and made us a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Where does she get her energy?” Adella asked me.

  I shrugged.

  “Look,” Mary said, “all we have to do is figure out what this riddle means. Maybe it’s actually telling us where to find the Eureka formula. In ‘The Gold-Bug,’ the cipher led to an actual buried treasure. Maybe it’s the same thing with the Eureka cipher.”

  I frowned. “At the end of the road of the dead?”

  “Why not?” Mary shoved a cup of coffee in front of me.

  “You know,” Adella studied her spoon as she stirred her coffee, “maybe Mary’s right. Maybe all we need to do is figure out what Schmaltz meant by the road of the dead. Perhaps to him this reference was obvious.”

  “So we find out everything we can about Dr. Schmaltz,” Mary said.

  I retrieved my laptop from the living room and brought up a historical site dedicated to Herman Schmaltz. “Dr. Schmaltz died in 1943, though his body was never found. He was presumed dead following a British-American air raid.”

  “Any surviving family?” Adella asked.

  “A grandson, retired and living in Switzerland,” I said. “And apparently there’s a museum in Hamburg dedicated to him. Hamburg’s where he lived most of his life. Maybe we could contact someone at the museum.”

  “And what about the local government?” Mary said. “They could have records about him and his family.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Adella replied. “I was also thinking there could be a community graveyard with a ‘road of the dead’ in it, or maybe a building called ‘the mansion of the night.’” She thought a moment. “Of course, if we’re going to do this right, we can’t do it over the phone. If Dr. Schmaltz did bury the formula, so to speak, as in ‘The Gold-Bug,’ there’s certainly no way a German scientist from that time period could have buried it here in the United States.”

  “So we’re going to Germany?” Mary asked.

  Adella looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Mary was clearly excited. Even better, she seemed to have forgotten all about her astronaut friend—at least for now. A couple of days with me in Germany, I figured, and she’ll have permanently forgotten about that guy.

  “But I don’t have any money,” Mary said.

  “That’s not a problem,” I told her.

  “I have lots of cash,” Adella added. “Do you both have passports?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Me too.” Mary pulled her feet up on her chair and hugged her knees. “I mean, not with me. But we need to go back and pick up some clothes and stuff anyway, right? And we’ll need to hide the skulls.”

  “We can hide them here at the cabin,” I suggested. “There’s no safer place.”

  We made our flight arrangements online: Fort Worth to Hamburg, leaving tomorrow at 7:05 P.M. with a one-hour layover in New York. I put all three tickets on one of my credit cards. Adella did offer to pay me with her go-bag cash, but I insisted it would be easier to just settle up later. For Adella’s ticket, we used one of her fake passports.

  • • •

  On our way out the door the next morning, at the top of the stairs leading down into the garage, I stopped to reset the alarms—and noticed that the alarm panel was showing the front door open. I had just checked it.

  “Quiet,” I said.

  “Ravens?” Mary whispered.

  We heard a series of beeps coming from the front foyer, followed by a caveman-like grunt.

  “Nope,” I said. “Unfortunately.”

  “Hey,” my father muttered, “this thing’s already off.”

  “Oh no, homeland security’s breached!” replied a slurred female voice.

  “Intruders beware!” my father bellowed, no doubt certain his thunderous voice would frighten away any would-be burglars. “Fee fi fo fum, I believe there’s someone in my living rum!”

  He and the woman laughed hysterically.

  “That your dad?” Mary asked.

  I sighed. “Yup.”

  “Well, come on then.” Mary patted me sympathetically on the shoulder. “He already knows you’re here.”

  “All right.” I said. “But why don’t you two wait here. I’ll see if I can make this quick.”

  I went into the living room, where a wall of whiskey and perfume halted me in my tracks. The woman with my father was wearing a black party dress and a crooked tiara.

  “We came by chariot,” she said upon seeing
me.

  “She’s drunk,” my father explained—as if this needed explaining. “She’s been saying nonsensical stuff all evening.” He waved at her dismissively.

  She waved back and fell into a chair.

  “Henry!” my father roared as if only just now aware of my presence. He threw his arms around me and lifted me off the floor—which is no easy task, but the man was built like a grizzly. When he set me down, he turned to his guest. “A good-looking young man, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You ain’t kidding—a real hunk,” she said. “A block off the old…” The woman thought a moment and then burst into laughter. “It’s a chip!” she managed to say before being overtaken by hysterics.

  “You realize it’s like nine in the morning,” I said over the woman’s paroxysms.

  “Henry, you’re obsessed with the sun.” He poked me in the ribs. “Should the sun dictate when a man’s allowed to drink?”

  “Hell no,” said the woman.

  “This is Diane. Or Diana… or something,” my father said.

  “It’s Diane,” the woman blurted. “Lunkhead.”

  I smiled and nodded at Diane. You poor fool. You better pray my mother never finds out about you. She tends to blame the women in these… situations.

  “And who are these lovely children?” my father asked.

  Naturally, Mary and Adella hadn’t stayed behind like I had asked them to. They joined us in the living room.

  “Friends of mine,” I said. “Mary, Adella, this is my father, Senator Howard Warland.”

  “Ladies, a pleasure.” My father stepped forward to shake their hands. He paused, taking Adella in, then Mary. “Henry, you have two real beauties here. You should have told me you were using The Cabin for ‘entertainment’ purposes.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “It never is,” Diane muttered.

  “Well, whatever it is, everyone take a seat,” my father said. “I’ll open the bar.”

  “About time,” Diane complained, straightening her tiara.

  “Actually, we were just heading out,” I said. “We have a really busy day ahead of us.”

  “You do?” My father walked over to the glass wall and looked out at the lake. He pointed, drunkenly, at nothing in particular. “It’s a big, big world out there, Henry.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So, go if you must. But be safe.” He came over and hugged me.

  “I will.”

  We started to leave.

  “Oh, and Henry.”

  “Yes?”

  “Keep me abreast of things, would you?” He turned to Diane. “Get it? A breast?”

  The two broke into laughter.

  Halfway down the stairs to the garage, I said, “And that guy writes our laws.”

  Chapter 4

  The rest of the day went pretty much as planned. We retrieved what Mary and I needed for our trip and boarded our flight at Dallas/Fort Worth. The only casualty of the day was my hat, which Mary suggested, wisely, I leave behind. A cowboy hat in Hamburg would be just the sort of thing to light up the Raven Entelechy radar.

  At JFK, we switched from an American Airlines 737 to a Lufthansa wide-body.

  “Excuse me, sir?” an attractive Lufthansa flight attendant said as we took our seats. “Do you have any condition, physical or otherwise, that might prevent you from performing emergency exit row procedures in the event of an emergency?”

  I looked at the exit sign above my head, then at the attendant. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” I told her, emphasizing my Texas accent. “No one’ll get past me.”

  She blinked.

  “Just teasing.” I smiled.

  “So, you will be able to perform your duties?” She narrowed her eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her gaze remained on me as she started away.

  Mary poked me in the ribs. “Don’t be such an idiot, Henry.”

  “What?” I looked past Mary at Adella, hoping for some support. But Adella, her reading glasses on, kept her eyes glued to her book.

  “We’re supposed to be staying under the radar,” Mary said. “Not flirting with flight attendants.”

  “I wasn’t flirting. You’re just jealous.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that.” She opened the seatback pocket in front of her and took out a Lufthansa magazine. She flipped through the pages—noisily.

  Well, this is going to be a fun flight.

  • • •

  We were somewhere over the Atlantic when Mary tried with all her might to push my elbow off the armrest. I pushed hers off instead.

  “Cut it out,” she said.

  “That’s your half,” I told her. “This is mine.”

  “That doesn’t work for me. You take the front and I’ll take the back, like this.” She squeezed her elbow behind mine.

  “All right, but why don’t you take the front and I’ll take the back?” I worked my elbow in behind hers.

  “Because that’s uncomfortable.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re the one with the fat elbows,” Mary complained.

  “At least they’re not bony.”

  “You mean like your head?”

  “Well, I might be a bonehead, but at least I’m going to have a comfortable flight.” I pushed her elbow off the armrest.

  She hit me with her magazine.

  “Hey, hey,” Adella said, her book closed, her glasses off. “What’s wrong with you two? You want me to sit between you? Will that solve your problem?”

  “He just needs to move his big fat elbow,” Mary said.

  “Where?” I shifted my elbow about, demonstrating how little room I had to work with. “I’m big and you’re small—you can put your tiny elbows wherever you want.”

  “Listen, you two.” Adella glared at us. “Can’t you at least try to act like adults? Figure it out.”

  “Fine.” I turned toward the window, my arm draped uncomfortably over my stomach, and closed my eyes.

  • • •

  I must have fallen asleep, because I was startled awake when Mary tapped on my shoulder. “Henry?”

  “Now what?” I opened my eyes.

  “Your girlfriend’s taking our drink orders.”

  The flight attendant looked at me, pencil at the ready.

  “I’ll have a beer. Thanks.”

  “He’ll have a ginger ale,” Mary corrected me.

  “Why can’t I have a beer?”

  “On a long flight like this, alcohol dries you out. It says so here.” She pointed at an article in her magazine.

  “Oh my God. Why’d you even wake me then?” I looked at the attendant. “A ginger ale—whatever.”

  I stretched and absently placed my elbow on the armrest. Mary withdrew hers immediately.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “No, go ahead,” she said. “It’s your turn.”

  I looked at her suspiciously. “Thank you.”

  “Well, you looked pretty uncomfortable.”

  “Just painfully so.” I closed my eyes.

  After a moment, Mary sighed, in an obvious attempt to let me know she was bored.

  I opened my eyes.

  “I hate long flights.” She yawned.

  I turned and looked at her. “How many long flights have you been on?”

  “This is my first.”

  In the row directly behind us, a baby started to cry.

  “How about you?” Mary asked. “Have you been on a lot of long flights?”

  “Not as long as this one.” I sat up. “I’m just kidding. My father’s a senator. I’ve been on a lot of long flights. And by the way, speaking of the senator, sorry about all that back at the house.”

  “You mean because he was drunk? Forget it. My parents are in prison for tax evasion and drug possession. I don’t think you need to apologize for your father, the senator.”

  “I guess that must have made for an interesting childhood,” I said.

  “We li
ved in a trailer on my grandparents’ farm with a huge greenhouse full of pot plants and a shed full of guns.”

  “Guns?”

  “They were preparing for the end of the world. Survivalists.”

  “Stoned survivalists?”

  “Pretty much.” Mary looked past me, out the window at the lightening sky. “Sometimes I used to wish for the end of the world, too. When things got boring. I hate boring.”

  A minute passed while we listened to the drone of the engines and the cries of the baby behind us.

  “Poor thing,” Mary said. “He’s scared.”

  “What makes you think he’s scared? And how do you know it’s a he?”

  “I just know these things. Especially when it comes to babies. Babies are easy.”

  I looked at her incredulously.

  “You want proof?” She turned around, looked over the seatback, and addressed the baby’s mother. “Hi, I’m Mary.”

  “I’m so sorry,” the mother said.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Mary assured her. “He’s just a little scared because of the strange noises and bumps and stuff. Babies are always trying to figure out their environment. So when their environment gets weird, they kind of freak out.”

  “We were thinking it was probably the air pressure,” the mother said.

  “It’s definitely the air pressure,” the baby’s father insisted.

  “Mary,” I said, looking over my seatback, “don’t you think these two have enough to deal with?”

  “Hello, little baby.” Mary waved at the teary-eyed infant.

  “His name is Joey,” the mother said, sitting him up and bouncing him.

  Mary reached over and petted his wispy blond hair. “Hi there, Joey.”

  The baby looked up at Mary and immediately stopped crying.

  “It’s okay, Joey.” She touched his cheek.

  The baby smiled and began cooing.

  “You’re amazing. Isn’t she amazing?” The mother looked at the father.

  He nodded, with a glance at me. What he didn’t say was, Hey, pal, if your girlfriend was flirting with me, I’d be cooing too.

  “It’s a gift,” Mary explained as Joey wrapped his hand around her finger.

  I sat down and looked around Mary’s shapely rear end at Adella, who was peering between the seats. Moments later, Mary sat back down too.