by Angie Kelly
"How would we be able to tell what was here from her time? And this ring is driving me crazy." I tried to pull the ring off my finger but it wouldn't come off. The labyrinth design in the center glowed an icy blue.
"What's wrong?" Tomi exclaimed and rushed over to me. We both stared at my ring, which was glowing like crazy.
"I've never seen it do this before," I said. Then I grabbed Tomi's hand. "Look! Your ring's doing the same thing!"
Suddenly, thin blue lights zipped out from the center of both our rings and the two lights connected, kinda like when we travel from our labyrinth back home. When the lights touched, smaller, thinner lights snaked out forming a wheel of bright blue light floating in midair. The wheel started spinning clockwise and beams of light shot out, each one hitting a row of trees before it disappeared. We were stunned.
"Okay, what just happened?" I asked.
Instead of answering, Tomi ran over to the first tree the blue lights had hit. "Hey, Lily, come look at this!"
I ran over and saw she was pointing at something glowing an eerie blue halfway down the tree trunk. It was a letter O carved deep into the trunk. The tree next to it had another glowing blue letter, an H. I pulled a note pad from my backpack and handed her a sheet of paper and a pen.
"Hurry! We need to check all the trees the lights hit and write down all the letters before they stop glowing and we can't find them,” I told her."
"Why? What do they mean?"
"Don't you get it?" I replied, annoyed.
"If I did I wouldn't be asking, would I?"
"Just do it and I'll explain afterwards!”
For the next few minutes we ran to each tree like two crazy people, ignoring the weird stares of all the people coming in and out of the Queen's Grove, checking for glowing, blue letters. When we were finished, we had thirteen letters: ohfdghdxgxurl.
"Now tell me what all this means," she demanded.
"When we travel through the labyrinth what do we all do first?" I asked, excitedly.
"We stand on the copper disks," said Tomi
"Then what do we do?"
"Lily!"
"We all concentrate on where we want to go, right? And then we're there."
"Yeah, but what does—"
"Hello? What were we concentrating on five minutes ago?"
She thought about it and then it hit her and her eyes opened wide.
"Right," I said, nodding. "We were both concentrating on how we were going to find the clues pointing us to the necklace."
"And the rings showed us the answer. But what do all these letters mean?"
"I'm not sure," I said, taking her piece of paper. "But I think this is a Caesar Cipher."
"A what?"
"You're telling me I know something about history you don't?"
"Tick tock, Lily! Alex is waiting." Tomi pointed to her watch.
"Julius Caesar was one of the first generals to use encrypted messages to communicate with his troops. I bet Avril learned how to do it from her father. He was the captain of the palace guard. He was a soldier. She must have come here and carved all these letters into the tree trunks."
"But how do we break the code?"
"It's pretty simple to decode. Each one of these letters has been shifted over in the alphabet by three spaces."
"So, A would become D?"
"Exactly."
"And how do you know it's only been shifted by three spaces? It could have been shifted by five or ten?"
"The most commonly used shift is three. So let's try three first."
Tomi and I worked on deciphering the letters. It didn't take us long, but once we were done all we had were another bunch of letters: lecadeauduroi.
"Le cadeau du roi!" Tomi said.
"What's it mean?"
"It's French for the gift of the king or the king's gift," said Tomi beaming.
"So the necklace is the king's gift?"
"Nope! The king's gift is where we find the necklace," said Tomi.
"Yeah, I'm confused. Where would—"
"The Petit Trianon!" she shouted.
"Huh?"
"The Petit Trianon is a little palace King Louis gave Marie Antoinette as a gift. It's where she would go when she didn't want to be bothered with all those stuffy people at Versailles and the strict rules of the court."
"You think the necklace is there?" I asked.
"Let's find out!"
"Wait, Lily," Tomi grabbed my arm and jerked me back. "Maybe we can find Alex the same way. Maybe one of those blue lights will point the way to where he is. Then we wouldn't have to worry about the necklace. We could just go rescue him."
"It's worth a shot."
We stood in the center of the Queen's Grove, closed our eyes, faced each other, held out our rings, and concentrated on Alex. My ring got a little warm. But nothing happened. I kept at it for five minutes but no more blue lights appeared. Our rings were back to normal. But Tomi's eyes were still closed. She wouldn't give up. I pushed her hand down.
"It's not a labyrinth anymore, Tomi." I put my arm around her slumped shoulders. "We must have tapped out what little power was left here."
"Let's go," was all she would say.
Chapter Eleven
The Petit Trianon was all the way on the other side of the gardens. We had to catch a tram to get there. Along the way police sirens were heard coming from the direction of the palace. I got the weirdest feeling they had something to do with Devon and Mia. I didn't want to worry Tomi, who was sitting in the seat in front of me, and tried to call Devon again on the sly. There was no answer. A couple of minutes later, we were let off at the Petit Trianon. The place had gilded gates and a cobblestone courtyard just like the palace of Versailles. Even though it was nowhere near the size of the palace, it was still pretty big. There were about a gazillion places a person could hide a necklace in a place so big.
"Don't think about how hard it'll be to find. Dwelling on perceived obstacles is so bad for your confidence," said Tomi, who had perked up a lot since we'd left the Queen's Grove.
The inside of the Petit Trianon was pretty much what you'd expect of a place where a queen used to live — meaning there were lots of chandeliers, fancy furniture, huge paintings, marble fireplaces and other old-fashioned-looking stuff. It just screamed 'Don't touch.' Actually, the place was pretty cool for something built hundreds of years ago. Only problem was Tomi and I had no idea where to find the necklace. It could be anywhere, and it wasn't like we could go searching through drawers and under seat cushions. I got the feeling if we got caught, they wouldn't just boot us out. They'd call the police.
"Think we should split up?" asked Tomi.
"Sounds like a plan. You take the first floor and I'll take the second."
I searched room after room on the second floor. I didn't actually touch anything because every room I went into there were other people looking around too, which made things tricky. Instead, I checked any place the necklace might be hiding, like amongst the crystals of the chandeliers, or the ornaments hanging from the straps holding the curtains back.
"Any luck?" asked Tomi anxiously, walking up behind me and scaring the bleep out of me.
"You're done searching already?"
"Look, I've been thinking. There's no way the necklace could have been hidden in obvious places like inside a drawer or a vase. It would have been found a long time ago. This place and all the furniture in here were renovated a few years ago and if a weird-looking necklace with a labyrinth design had been found, it would have been in the news."
"So what are you saying?" I whispered when an old couple kept looking over at us suspiciously.
"I don't know," she said, shrugging. "Maybe we should be looking at unchanged stuff."
"Unchanged stuff?"
"You know, Lily. Like the floors. These are the same wood and tile floors; they just got polished. Or the walls, they're the same walls; they just got painted."
"Floors and walls?" I wasn't sure I agreed.
When I thought of something being hidden, I thought of levers and secret panels in the walls or behind loose bricks in the fireplace. I bet the Petit Trianon didn't have a loose brick anywhere. And if there had been any, they would have gotten fixed a long time ago. But to humor Tomi I hunted around on the floors and along the walls. And I finally noticed most of the walls had these fancy raised ornamental moldings on them. The designs had been painted over so they looked like they were pressing through the wall. Most of them were designs of flowers, fruit, and laurel leaves. And some of them were pretty big and went halfway up the wall. I took a quick peek at the sketch Devon sent me, then got busy looking for wall moldings with diamond shapes like the pendant on the necklace. Tomi had gone, to search another room, so I couldn't have her help me.
I didn't find anything even close to a diamond shape pattern on the wall until I got to the sitting room next to Marie Antoinette's bedroom. Go figure. The walls in the room were painted powder blue, with the decorative moldings painted white. Halfway down the wall were round shell designs. But not all the round shell designs were the same. There was one closest to the window with a different shape in the center. A diamond shape. Whoa.
"Find anything?" Tomi's voice made me jump again.
"Will you stop sneaking up on me?" I whispered.
"Well, did you?" she asked impatiently.
I pointed to the wall next to the window and we crept closer. There were a bunch of English ladies oohing and ahhing over the mirrored panels covering the windows. According to what we overheard the ladies saying, the mirrors could be cranked up over the windows to give the queen privacy. Made me wonder what old Marie was up to back here in her own private estate. Once they left, we were able to get a close look at the wall.
"I think you're right! This might be it."
"But how are we going to get it off the wall?" I asked, running my fingernail around the design. The paint had welded it to the wall like cement.
Tomi rummaged through her backpack and pulled out nail clippers and flipped out the attached file. She started digging around the raised design trying to loosen it while I kept watch.
"Hurry up," I told her when I heard voices coming.
"Hold on." She got the nail file under the molding and pulled.
There was a cracking noise and the diamond shaped molding came away from the wall. We didn't have time to look at it so Tomi shoved it into her backpack just as group of people came through the door. We got the heck out of Dodge. But once we got outside and had a chance to look at it, we saw what we'd pried of the wall wasn't the necklace. It was diamond-shaped all right, but nothing like the picture Devon had sent us. There were no tiny pearls on it and definitely no labyrinth design. It was a wafer thin piece of polished black onyx an inch wide with one side covered in white paint from where it had been stuck to the wall.
"This isn't it! We searched for nothing!" I was about to hurl it across the courtyard when Tomi snatched it out of my hand.
"Don't! It looks like there's writing underneath the painted side."
She was right. She held the stone to the light and underneath the white paint we could just make out faint traces of gold lettering. Tomi used her nail file to scrape at the paint until we could finally make out the tiny words carved in the stone and painted gold. And no big surprise they were in French. Tomi wrote down the translation.
"What's it say?" I asked.
"Something weird."
"Go on," I prod.
"It says, ‘Not just a man. Not just a beast. If you are mystified, on you I will feast. With music and tea. Oh no!" she moaned, clapping her hand to her forehead. "It's another clue!"
"It's a riddle," I said excitedly.
"It doesn't matter what it is if we can't figure it out."
"Don't think about how hard it'll be to solve. Dwelling on perceived… "
A skinny thumb and forefinger shot out, stinging me like scorpion.
"Ow! You didn't have to pinch me." I rubbed the back of my arm.
"I need you to figure out the riddle, not make fun of me! Not cool! So not cool!"
"Okay, I'm on it. And when was the last time you had some chocolate, you little psycho?"
"Sorry." Tomi popped another chocolate drop in her mouth. The difference in her mood was nothing short of amazing. "So what's the man beast part mean? How can someone not be a man or a beast?" She asked around a blob of chocolate.
I thought about it for a minute, rereading the riddle again a couple times before it hit me. "It doesn't say not a man, not a beast. It say's not just a man and not just a beast, meaning if it's not one or the other then it's both man and beast. "
"Still confused."
"Of course you are." I sighed. "It's a riddle Tomi. They're designed to confuse and… "
"And what?"
"And… mystify," I said, stabbing a finger triumphantly at the riddle. "When a person can't solve a riddle it’s because they’re mystified. And if they’re mystified they'll get feasted on by the man/beast." I was hoping Tomi would jump on my train of thought. Her eyes widened. She smiled. She opened her mouth to speak. Then she fell off the train.
"Sorry, still not getting it."
"A sphinx," I said, rolling my eyes. "You know, those mythical creatures with the body of a lion and a man's head? They ask riddles, and if you can't answer, they eat you."
"Yes!" Tomi pumped her fist. "And actually," she continued unable to resist throwing in a history lesson, "if we're talking Greek sphinxes, they usually have a woman's head and chest. My parents found loads of them on their digs in Greece. But I can't figure out what a sphinx would have to do with Marie Antoinette's necklace."
"And what in the world would music and tea have to do with it?" I asked.
"Let me think," replied Tomi, her brow creased in concentration.
"How about song lyrics? Do you know if she had a favorite song? Maybe there's a secret message in her favorite song."
"She did sing and play the harp," said, Tomi. "So she probably had a lot of favorite songs not just one!"
"Argh!" I kicked the low stone wall we were standing next to in frustration. "Well, then, how about a favorite kind of tea?"
"She had stomach problems. She mostly drank water."
"Seriously?" I couldn't imagine having such a fab and luxe life, with jewels and fancy gowns, servants at your beck and call, and being able to drink only water. Guess there were no antacids back then. "How sad?"
"Actually, the sad part was her ending up without a head, Lily. Now be quiet for a minute and let me think. It's like the answer is right there but I can't touch it." Tomi walked around in circles with her eyes closed rubbing her temples like she was trying to rub the answer out of her brain.
While Tomi was thinking, the same group of old ladies from the sitting room where we'd found the riddle were standing a few feet away looking at a map. There were four of them. I was only half listening but they seemed to be arguing about where to go and what to do next.
"I want to see the Temple of Love," declared a lady with blue hair.
"Enough with all this walking. I want to rest me feet and have a nice cuppa," said the lady with fluffy white hair and a double chin.
"Give it a rest, Mildred. We'll only be here a short while, and I want to see everything," whined the lady with the deep voice and large mole beside her nose.
"Don't fret, dears. We don't have to be back for ages yet. We've still got time to do it all," said the tall, skinny lady with the stooped shoulders.
"See there. I knew we'd have time for a cuppa," said Mildred, shooting the mole lady a smirk. "It says right here on the map there's a restaurant called The Belvedere not far from here. I say we get out of this ungodly heat and have some refreshment."
"Where? I didn't see any restaurant near here," said the blue-haired lady, squinting at the map.
"It's not a restaurant," declared the mole lady. "It says the Belvedere was Marie Antoinette's music room and it's where she served her gu
ests herself."
"Ooh and look," said blue-haired lady excitedly, "the Temple of Love is near there. Let's go." They all took off walking.
"But what about my cuppa?" moaned Mildred rushing after her friends.
They hadn't gotten but a few yards away when it suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightning. Alex used the word cuppa too. Cuppa was British slang for a cup of tea! And Mildred had thought she could get some tea at someplace called the Belvedere, which was Marie Antoinette's music room. Tea and music! Just then Tomi ran up to me.
"I got it! I got it!"
And we both shouted at the same time, "It's the Belvedere!"
****
The Belvedere turned out to be a small octagon-shaped building sitting atop a rock on a tiny island in the pond of the Petit Trianon's English garden.
"Look!" Tomi pointed across the pond. Guarding each side of the two sets of stone steps leading up to the building were six sphinx statues.
"See!" I said, excitedly nudging Tomi. "I knew this was the right place. How do we get over there?"
"Come on! This way."
I followed Tomi across a stone bridge cut through a rock, which was the only way to get to the Belvedere. Once across, I started to run and hit a patch of wet grass. My foot slid out from under me and for an instant I was airborne before I fell flat on my back, mashing my backpack. I heard something inside crack and I gulped. Uh oh. There was something in my backpack I had no business having, and I was afraid I'd broken it. But I was even more afraid to look.
"You okay?" Tomi held out a hand and helped me up.
"Um… yeah," I said, looking around warily. "Let's go."
The four old ladies were already there. Three of them had their faces pressed against panes of glass on the closed peach-colored French doors looking inside the small building, while Mildred sat on the step watching us. Waiting.
"Boy, they sure got here fast. I thought we passed them," commented Tomi.
"Why don't you take the three sphinxes over there and I'll take these three," I told her.
"What are we looking for?" asked Tomi.