by M. G. Harris
But she keeps going. “Think you’ll get taller?”
“Hope so.”
She shrugs, smiles. “A little taller couldn’t hurt.”
We’re standing inches apart; she’s holding my hands, breathing right against my mouth, and I somehow can’t make myself move.
She’s two years older than you, idiot! Whatever you think this is, you’re wrong. One false move and it’ll be a slap in the face for you.
And right then, she leans closer and kisses me. Right on the lips. I keep thinking she’s going to stop but she doesn’t and she doesn’t push me away. Eventually it’s me who pulls away … because I have no clue what to do next.
I hunt for something to say, which is tricky because I can hardly breathe.
She smiles. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I cough nervously. “No … no … it was like … wow!”
She leans a wrist on my shoulder and actually runs her fingers through my hair. “You’re not weirded out that I’m older than you?”
I laugh. “Are you kidding … ?” And emphatically add, “No way!”
“So you’d go out with me … ?”
“Ollie, of course I would!”
“How about right now—how about a movie and then ice cream at G&D’s?”
I could burble stuff about her making my dreams come true, but thankfully I don’t.
8
My first date with Ollie and I can’t even blog it. Mind you, the idea of anyone reading what I’d write about that is just too embarrassing.
Well, in fact, it’s a false start. Ollie gets a text while we’re in the line for the movie and she has to go home. Seems that she’s forgotten that she has a big schoolwork deadline the next day. So I trudge home, a bit deflated.
How can she think of schoolwork at a time like this?
On Monday before I leave for school, I manage to remember to grab the document folder with the copied pages from Ix Codex—no way can I leave it around the house while I’m out. I stuff it into my backpack and carry it around all day. I don’t take it out of my backpack until I’m on the bus home that afternoon.
Seeing Madison again was a shock. Oxford used to feel so cozy and safe, especially compared to Mexico. But now that I know Madison’s back in the UK, it makes me wonder. Oxford, Beirut, Mexico—Madison sure gets around. Is he based here, though? When Madison burglarized our house last year, stole our computers and that book by John Lloyd Stephens, I assumed he was a secret agent working for the CIA or something. Back then I’d never even heard of the National Reconnaissance Office.
But when I was actually interrogated by the secret agents who were on the case—agents from the NRO—they told me that Madison wasn’t with them.
In fact, they were pretty sure he was on more than one Most Wanted list.
And anyway, the NRO were already on my case—ever since they captured and murdered my dad, they must have been monitoring my e-mails and Web searches. The NRO have been after the mysteries of Ek Naab ever since they found my grandfather’s crashed Muwan, back in the 1960s.
So if Madison didn’t tell the NRO about my involvement with the Ix Codex, who does he work for?
Or could I be wrong?
Could it all be a big ruse—Madison being a suspected terrorist wanted by the FBI and CIA? What if he’s actually one of their own, but working undercover? An undercover double agent, like Krycek from The X-Files.
Maybe only Madison knows who he really works for.
I turn these thoughts over and over, wondering. Who is Simon Madison? Why did he steal that book by John Lloyd Stephens? Is it possible after all that he did kill my father?
And I’m so lost in this that it’s only on the bus back home that I think to look at those pages one last time before I burn them. And that’s when I notice.
The pages inside the document folder have been switched.
The copied pages from the Ix Codex, the diary entry, the translation, and all the copies are gone. Instead, there are just a handful of blank pages.
I look around the bus. I’m suddenly paranoid. Is Madison following me even here?
But no. It’s more serious than that. I’ve had these documents on me the whole time, except for last night. There’s only one possibility, and it almost stops my heart to think it.
Ollie.
Is that why she came around last night? Is that what it was all about—getting me out of the house so that Madison could come over and steal the pages? I didn’t lock the back door until I came home—Madison could have sneaked in, gone to my room. Mom might never have noticed.
The more I think about it, the worse I feel. I’m almost dizzy, totally distracted. When someone from school yells, “Josh, wasn’t that your stop back there?” I realize that I’m on the way to Woodstock and way past my house.
Why, though? Why would she? That’s what I can’t figure out. Did Madison get to her somehow? Bribe or threaten her? Maybe he threatened me and she thought she was doing me a favor, getting rid of the last thing that put me in danger?
I’m about to call Tyler to talk it over with him.
But on the long walk home, my hands and face freezing in the cold December wind, I get to thinking. Tyler is the only other person who knew I was going to Saffron Walden. What if Madison’s appearance there was no coincidence?
I remember now that Tyler was texting someone on his cell phone while we sat on the bus. He said it was a girl, wouldn’t show me the texts. But that was weird. He’s always showing off about the girls who like him. Why not then?
Was Tyler giving Madison a tip-off that we knew there might be a clue to the Ix Codex in Saffron Walden?
Once I get started, it starts to look like it could be Tyler just as much as it could be Ollie. Now I think back, I remember I was with Tyler the night that Madison robbed my house.
Tyler came to me. He practically begged me to go to capoeira with him that evening.
It makes sense. Tyler hadn’t been that much of a friend before that day. He was just another guy from capoeira. After that, somehow, he’d become involved with helping me solve the whole codex mystery. I haven’t given it much thought before.
Why did he? Was Tyler working with Simon Madison?
Had Tyler betrayed me from the beginning, helped Simon Madison to get into my house and read files and e-mails from my computer, which led him to my half sister in Mexico, which led to her death?
I reach my house, dazed. Mom takes one look at me.
“Goodness, Josh, what’s wrong? You’re as white as a sheet!”
I collapse onto the living room sofa. I must look bad, because Mom follows me.
“Seriously, Josh. You’re worrying me. Are you ill?”
I look at her slowly. “I’m feeling a little sick, yeah …”
She touches my forehead with the back of her hand. “You don’t feel feverish … but you’re shaking.”
“Huh … so I am …”
Mom wraps her arms around my shoulders and gives me a long hug. “My poor baby. Get to bed and I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”
My voice muffled against Mom’s hair, I mutter, “I’m not a baby.” But I don’t stop her hugging me. Truth is I hardly notice, I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts. The implications are staggering.
I mean … everything that Tyler knows. It explains why he’s so skeptical about my UFO-abduction cover story, why I’ve never felt able to fully trust him. The one thing I can’t figure out is how.
I’ve known Tyler by sight for years. Did Madison recruit him? Is there some sort of organization?
Then something truly horrible occurs to me.
What if Tyler and Ollie are working together?
I feel physically sick.
What if he was texting Ollie? What if she’s the link with Madison, not Tyler? Now that I really think hard about it, both Tyler and Ollie came into my life around the time of the burglary. Okay, I’d known Ollie as “TopShopPrincess” from my blog, but only for a few weeks. What if Tyler overheard
me talking about my blog with someone at capoeira, and then contacted Ollie to tell her to start commenting on it? Did I ever talk about my blog, though? I start to panic, struggling to remember.
Dad had been interested in the Ix Codex for months before he went missing. The NRO knew about it, so whatever outfit Madison works for—if there is anyone else—they might have known about it too. Ollie and Tyler could both have known about the Ix Codex long before I did.
What if they’ve both been watching me from the start?
I try to think through everything they could know, everything that could put me in danger. My mind is racing, my heartbeat too.
I need to calm down. Be logical.
Abruptly, I pull away from my mother.
Mom strokes my frozen hands. “Would you like something to eat too?”
“No,” I say, feeling distant. “I mean, yes, a sandwich, please.”
“Well, you can’t be all that sick … ,” Mom says with a smile, kissing my cheek.
I need food because I need to think. One of them betrayed me—Tyler or Ollie. Maybe even both.
I need to figure out which—and fast.
9
I lie spread-eagled on top of my duvet, staring at the ceiling until Mom arrives with my food and tea.
I kind of like getting this attention from Mom. I start concocting this little fantasy where Mom knows all about my secret life and waits at home for me with tea and homemade cookies and sympathy.
But that could never happen. If Mom knew … whew. There’s no way she’d let me out of the house.
So, Ollie? Or Tyler? Or both?
I think about Ollie.
The way she kissed me.
That was acting? If it was, I don’t know how I can ever trust a girl again. I could never, never pretend like that.
I can’t tell whether I’m angry, upset, or scared. It’s some horrible combination of all three.
And I write:
The Case Against Ollie:
1. She came from nowhere, just in time to get involved in the Ix Codex mystery.
2. She got me out of the house last night, the only time when someone could have stolen the pages from the document folder.
I think really hard, then add:
3. In Mexico, after I’d been to Ek Naab, she kept asking me what was in the case I was carrying, and where I got it.
4. She heard me mention to Rodrigo that my dad might have been in Saffron Walden because of a famous archaeologist.
The Case Against Tyler:
1. He only really started being my friend after my dad’s disappearance.
2. He got me out of the house the night of the burglary earlier this year.
3. After Madison stole Mom’s copy of the John Lloyd Stephens book from my house, I tried to replace it and found it in a secondhand bookstore in Jericho. How come Madison showed up at that shop? Only Tyler knew I was on my way there.
4. And how come Madison showed up in Saffron Walden? Only Tyler knew I was on my way … and he wouldn’t let me see who he was texting on the bus trip.
On paper it looks pretty balanced. One’s as shady as the other.
My heart tells me it’s Tyler … my gut tells me it’s Ollie.
And my head tells me that it really could be both.
I get very close to calling Montoyo on my Ek Naab phone. Only the total dumbness of what I may have done stops me.
But then I get to thinking. What if the copied pages of the codex don’t actually contain any important information—what if they only contain information that couldn’t possibly be of any use? Stuff that could never harm Ek Naab?
Then all that running around in Batman costumes has been a wild-goose chase—nothing more. And all that’s really happened is that I’ve exposed Tyler. Or Ollie. Or both.
For the first time, this idea gives me some hope. I even manage a grim smile, thinking of the NRO getting all excited, imagining they’d found the Ix Codex down in Saffron Walden. Only to find a big fat zero.
Maybe it’s not such a disaster. Maybe I can decipher those pages myself and see what’s written there. Then I’ll know if I’m in big trouble—or not.
I munch the sandwich, licking my fingers as I bring up the scans of the codex on my computer screen.
Thank God I scanned them …
I stare for ages at the page with a few glyphs translated into syllables. It takes me an hour struggling with a Mayan dictionary to work out that there’s something wrong.
Each Mayan word is written as a glyph made up of a few symbols that represent syllables, all stuck together. Except when the glyph is one picture, one word—an ideogram.
If you can read the syllables, you should be able to put them together to make words that exist in the Mayan language. A syllable can be something like ek (meaning “black” or “dark”) or naab (meaning “pool” or “water”). Stuck together, these become the glyph for “Ek Naab.”
Well, I keep staring at the syllables on the pages I scanned, trying to work out the words they make. But all I get are words that I can’t find anywhere in the Mayan dictionary.
It’s not that I can’t recognize the syllables. I know plenty, like kan, ta, na, el, ek, and to.
But the words—gobbledegook!
Unless this is some older or different version of Mayan writing that used a different system of arranging the syllables to make words, then these are not Mayan words.
As in, the codex is not written in Classic Mayan.
And then I remember what they told me when I was in Ek Naab meeting the other Bakabs, descendents of Itzamna who guard the four Books.
The Books of Itzamna are written in code.
Of course. Mayan glyphs, but not Mayan language. Like writing that uses letters from the English alphabet but is in another language.
But how to crack the code?
From what I can tell, the “translation” page is nothing more than an incomplete syllabary—a translation of some of the syllables. As if someone, perhaps Eric Thompson himself, tried to decode the Mayan inscription.
My guess is that he got no further than I did. And I’m sitting here with a Mayan dictionary—which Thompson couldn’t have had, because in his day, no one alive could read Mayan hieroglyphs…
And yet. I keep staring at the “translated” words I’ve written. There’s something weirdly familiar about them. I just can’t tell what.
kan-ta-na. el-ek-to mak-ne-ti-ka pul-sa.
Mom knocks softly at my door. “Feeling better?”
I’m miles away, thinking about glyphs. “Hmm?”
Mom clears her throat, a little nervously. “Can we talk about Christmas again?”
I look up in silence.
“I’ve been thinking that I’d like us to go on a retreat.”
I gulp down a mouthful of my sandwich. “A retreat? Like, in a convent or something?”
“Yes.”
“No way. No way on earth.”
Mom presses her lips together tightly. In a very quiet voice, she says, “Well, let’s talk about it some other time, when you’re feeling better.”
“There’s no way I’m spending Christmas at a convent!”
“Hmm,” she says vaguely. “Oh, I almost forgot, there was a postcard for you today. From Mexico. There must be some kind of funny ad campaign going on, because I’ve had a couple too. You might have seen them lying around.”
I stare at her, baffled. “Postcard?”
“They’re in the kitchen. You didn’t see?”
I follow Mom downstairs as she carries back the tray. In the kitchen, she pulls a postcard from a pile of envelopes. Then she takes two postcards from the fridge door. One I recognize as a photo of Tikal, the famous Mayan city they used as the rebel base in the first Star Wars film.
How long have those postcards been on the fridge door? I’ve managed to miss them entirely.
She tosses all three onto the table. All are photographs of different Mayan cities. I turn them over, one by one.
DEATH.UNDID.HARMONY.
WHAT.KEY.
Those are the messages on Mom’s two cards.
My latest message reads, ZOMBIE.DOWNED.
“It must be some kind of game,” she says. “We must be on some mailing list after your trip this summer.”
“I’ve got one of these postcards,” I tell Mom. “You didn’t say that there were others …”
I check the location stamps. All mailed from Veracruz. I get my own first postcard and check the dates, then arrange the cards in order of arrival. Put together, the messages read like this:
WHAT.KEY.HOLDS.BLOOD.
DEATH.UNDID.HARMONY.
ZOMBIE.DOWNED.
“It’s rather odd,” Mom admits. I glance at her. Not a trace of irony—she totally means it! It’s amazing what your brain will miss when you’re completely in denial.
But me—I know better. To the untrained eye, it might look like gibberish, but somewhere, somehow, there’s a message. It’s meant for me.
And it almost certainly spells danger.
10
If there’s going to be danger, then suddenly a retreat seems like a pretty safe place for my mom.
“So tell me more about this retreat …”
“We could stay with the Benedictines at Worth Abbey … they’re really interesting and lovely people, and it’s not all praying, you know …”
Warily I say, “Mom … you do know I don’t even believe in God anymore?”
She waves a hand, shrugs. “Oh, all teenagers go through that. The thing is to keep going to Mass, so that you’re always open to the Holy Spirit.”
“But … how can I believe in a God that let my dad be murdered?”
Mom sighs. “That’s the sort of thing you can talk about at the retreat. There’ll be people around who can answer those questions better than I.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going. But …”
“Go on …”
I take a deep breath. “I think you should go. It’d be good for you, over Christmas.”
“But, Josh … without you?”
“You need something like this. And me … I need to be with my friends.”